I'm surprised that it took you that long to come to terms with this. I would think that you're aware of going down this path the moment you started ripping graphics off the Win95 version.
Of course I was aware, but as I said: as I began, I never really believed this would end in a fully playable game worth releasing.
Don't bother. AFAIK in the history of computer games, especially well-known commercial ones, there has never been a case of individuals being granted any sort of licensing terms beyond the boilerplate ones specified by the software's EULA. Copyrights (and other IPs) are generally transferred or bought/sold/traded between corporations or similar business entities, often as part of an overall transfer of IP within a business acquisition or the like.
Yeah well, some companies gave their once commercial games into the public domain, some released source code etc.
It's not like you could earn a lot of money by re-releasing the _original_ Lemmings in 2005. So if businessmen were receptive to human logic, there would be a chance. Unfortunately, the usually aren't
It also doesn't help that Sony is indeed currently planning to release a remake of Lemmings for the PSP in the near future.
Bad timing I guess. However, this is a completely reworked version for a completely different system, so the is really no impact IMHO.
I borrow from the Win95 version, so my first goal is to find out who own the copyright to this version, then who holds a "general" lemmings copyright.
Even if they did, I doubt they'd be of help. Copyright laws have a "for-hire" clause whereby any creative work created by a paid employee hired by a company, means that the company, not the employee, owns the copyright. And most companies, especially in the business of software, generally makes their employee sign an even more stringent agreement as part of their condition for employment anyway.
Hm, I think you got me wrong. At this moment, I didn't ask anybody for any permission. I just try to find out WHOM to ask and since there is no chance to get an aswer if I write to any "official" address, it would somehow help me to find someone inside Sony/Take2 who is at least willing to listen to my plea.
I'm aware that chances are low that someone will give me a sensible answer. And they are close to zero that my plea will be granted. However, at least i want to TRY to ask.
Though I suppose in the case of Mike, if he has graphics which were never used in the game and sufficiently different from the actual ones in the game, conceivably he could own the copyrights to such graphics. But we haven't seen him around for a while.
As I said, you got me completely wrong here. It's not that I asked Mike for permission because I'm well aware that he surely doesn't own the copypright. I just asked him - amongst other people - if he could clarify the legal situation (e.g. whether Sony or Take2 hold the copyright).
Chances are that he knows someone "behind the scenes" whom I may ask.
Maybe they would tell me that even if I released only the engine, they would sue the crap out of me. It's just that I want to know where I'm standing and what to expect.
I'm just not keen on getting into legal trouble because of something that I do for fun.