(2300AD) Does Mongoose Own/Licence QLI's 2320AD

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

As per the title, I was curious whether Mongoose has a licence/ ownership of the 2320AD property, or whether it remains with QLI.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I may be wrong but I think it now rests with MWM.

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

QLI lost their licence, sure. However, things that are their copyright (i.e. their own creations) would remain so even after the licence lapsed, unless those were licenced back or purchased.

 

[Yatima]

QLI lost their licence, sure. However, things that are their copyright (i.e. their own creations) would remain so even after the licence lapsed, unless those were licenced back or purchased.

Is that always so? How is MWM able to republish Traveller materials from GURPS Traveller, Traveller Hero etc? I wonder if there's a new license clause relating to ownership of materials once the license lapses following the mess related to ownership of DGP materials?

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

T20 is now owned by FFE. It appears that MWM bought the rights back, because that's how he acquired the Judges Guild rights (which he would not have acquired otherwise). By the date of FFE CD release this purchase was probably around 2014.

I would assume 2320 went in a bundle with T20 to FFE.

 

[ottarrus]

Several years ago Colin told me via an FB PM that QLI had commissioned and paid him for 2320AD and that it belonged to them.
Obviously, with the retraction of QLI's license that situation has changed, but looking at the differences between GDW's 2300AD material andColin's writing in Mongoose 2300AD 1st Ed and Mongoose 2300AD 2nd Ed my guess is that if 2320 is readdressed at some point in the future [and it may well be], it will happen after whatever Colin has planned for the Kaefer War and will probably be significantly changed from OLI's product.

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

Indeed, but the end of a licence typically doesn't transfer the creative products made under that licence to the licensor. You end up in a situation where neither party can use the creative works made under the licence. It renders the rights to the property pretty useless, and monetarily almost worthless to the ex-licencee.

 

[ottarrus]

And it depends on the specific contract signed between the parties.
Most of them are standard boilerplate, but some have some very interesting provisions and addenda. And none of us have seen any of the contracts.
If I were to guess [and that's exactly what I'm doing] I would say that the future of 2300 looks something like this [and remember that all of this depends on sales]. In no particular order:
- Atlases of each Arm
- Ground Forces Guide detailing the armies of the big powers, maybe with exemplar TO&Es for at least of few of them
- The Kaefer War, possibly in two books, a sourcebook which includes ground combat/resistance campaigning and a naval battles book
And after all this, again assuming sales support the work, we'll get to The Future [tm].

 

[MongooseMatt]

Indeed, but the end of a licence typically doesn't transfer the creative products made under that licence to the licensor.

Typically, it does these days - doing otherwise creates a very messy situation and just causes nightmares. The early days of Traveller are a good example of this, and a lot of effort has been made in subsequent years to try to bring everything back into the official Traveller fold.

 

[phavoc]

And it depends on the specific contract signed between the parties.
Most of them are standard boilerplate, but some have some very interesting provisions and addenda. And none of us have seen any of the contracts.

Yep. Without seeing the license agreement we don't know the terms. It could have been something as simple as after X years ending of actively publishing all pre-existing work reverts back to the original licensor. Sony has something similar to that with Spiderman franchise. They have to release a movie periodically if they wish to retain the rights to Spiderman. Otherwise they would lose the rights and they would revert back to Marvel (now Disney). Depending on how the contract was structured, Sony MIGHT be able to release one of the previous movies they had created, but they could not make NEW Spiderman movies since they no longer had rights to the character. They might also be prohibited from using the Spiderman title, since that would have also have been returned to the original owner.

If you look at the TAS agreement you can see that as a regular person you can publish Traveller things using the copyrighted material, however while you don't LOSE your copyright to your own work, by releasing under TAS you have ALSO agreed to transfer your IP rights to MGT for their commercial use. So technically you both keep, and lose, your IP rights.

Contract law.... yay?