Thanks for information
@FAST6191 and
@VartioArtel.
So it could be classified as abandonware or orphanware.
But if by some means, someone can get a digital copy for free, who has the rights to sue him/her?
If something is literally buried, why can't people have it for free, because there is no other legal way to buy it!
I think soon or later legislators will be forced to make laws about legal use of such licenses, for preservation.
Abandonware is not a legal classification. Some wish it was but it is neither that, nor a defence if you do get called up to stand before the beak and explain yourself.
Orphaned works is a different matter. This is something more of a term of art but still not really a defence or anything as much as a classification -- there is no real duty of care to update any registers. You sell a CD with a ROM on it and turns out through 16 layers of buyouts that EA owns it (and possibly can prove it) they will be able to come after you even if plausibly nobody (even after hiring the rare copyright lawyer-forensic accountant-bankruptcy lawyer-inheritance lawyer combo to do a trace and it coming back short before you sold your ROM CD, and why not you advertising in every paper up and down the land your intentions to sell this CD) owned it at the time. If you did something as silly as the bracketed section you might get some leniency in some aspects but still not really a defence or something I would advise a would be client to do were I playing lawyer. Depending upon the game you might be able to run out the clock (selling would arguably be criminal so in the US they have 5 years from the last infringement -
https://profiletree.com/copyright-statute-of-limitations/ , though that does mean if you still actively have it for sale on your website then...)
"Sometimes the company behind is no longer in business"
And when that happens there will usually be assets sold off to other interested parties, creditors and whatever else. The original maker (or if done under work for hire then that) being around* or not matters little in this. On rare occasions the company might shutter quietly and assets default to whatever they do when you shutter businesses of various flavour (shutter your business as a handyman to retire and if your debts are settled then your tools tend to go to you, not much different if you are a small 1 owner game studio with a few employees and don't care to auction things off or sell your IP for a pittance).
*technically works done by an individual rather than a corporation care as author's life plus however many years is a thing there, though that probably does not apply to most games that were not done in the bedroom coding eras of the C64 and its ilk. Though going through some of the various unreleased titles from the GB/GBC we have been seeing lately then maybe some of those could fall into it.
"And besides, it's very hard to get your hands on an old physical copy."
"because there is no other legal way to buy it!"
Hard does not mean impossible or no legal way. Just means hard.
Presumably it is why copyright was originally intended to be much much much less than that -- depending upon how far back you want to go (we could debate the statute of queen anne for example) then similar length to patents but more reasonably the 1960s (1964 being the year things would fall out of copyright today if the stuff had not been extended in the 70s.)
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2021/
Even if it was impossible the rights still remain with the copyright holder to exploit how they will -- if it is a desirable work then holding it off the market for a while might increase interest such that there is incentive to create a new official issuance. If "pirate away lads" was in effect that interest could be lessened. See something like the "Disney vault" if you are in the US, or indeed if sticking with games then retro collections have been popular... more or less since the generation after their initial release (you had all manner of arcade packs of things that might have run on the Atari, VIC20 a like hardware and such on the NES, plenty of NES remakes on the SNES, multicart was a thing throughout it all as indeed I have bundles for my C64, and I have a nice collection of pre 7 final fantasy games on the PS1 which also has any number of arcade packs, after that it was pretty much off to the races -- name me a post 16 bit system you can't buy an "arcade classics collection" on).
This would still apply even in the case where the rights to produce games based on characters from another entity reverted to the original owner and they are blocking production of new works. That it could still happen in the future would be enough.
Digital versions of works is an as yet unsettled question and varies about the place. The EU has right of resale for such things (
https://www.osborneclarke.com/insights/paris-court-rules-users-may-resell-games-purchased-steam/ ), the US is rather more nebulous though what few cases there have been seem to say there will need to be a law passed allowing resale (there was a company that sought to allow people to resell music that got smacked down). The obvious next "what if" from there is I have no idea what happens to your Steam library after you die as I don't think I have seen a case yet dealing with it, though I would bet heavily on it going to your estate and onwards like anything else (what its value might be for tax/limits purposes is a whole different game, especially if you can't legally sell it/realise money from it. Would probably also look for divorce cases as they might have something else here for value determinations).
Choice videos in such scenarios
