What about the people selling replica Buster Swords from Final Fantasy? Square is still making money off their FF7 IP, they're just not selling their own Buster Swords.
Oh, and if they make "re-imaginings" that have little resemblance to the original, the original instantly goes into public domain because the copyright holder has deemed it obsolete. This is the Battlestar Galactica corollary of my theory.
Space battleship pursued by robots. The titular ships are similar, several names and locations are reused, etc. And what about things like Marvel Comics' "Ultimate" line, which has arguably the same amount of alteration as New BSG?
If the copyright holder didn't think the IP was worth enough to bother making it available for sale, then essentially they abandoned it.
Neil Gaiman has, I believe, several stories available for free on his website. Never put of for sale, just put there. If they left it up for ten years, should it pass into PD?
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Date: 2008-04-15 12:16 pm (UTC)Space battleship pursued by robots. The titular ships are similar, several names and locations are reused, etc. And what about things like Marvel Comics' "Ultimate" line, which has arguably the same amount of alteration as New BSG?
Neil Gaiman has, I believe, several stories available for free on his website. Never put of for sale, just put there. If they left it up for ten years, should it pass into PD?