Can I use the likeness of a character from an abandoned game?
I'm writing a free Android game and the users will collect characters throughout. I'm wanting to use a character called Zool, who is a character from a game of the same name on the Amiga in the 90s. The company who owned the game went bust and sold the rights to another company who went under over 10 years ago.
The game is classed at abandonware.
I would be re-drawing the character myself rather than using a screenshot or box art.
Would I be allowed to do this?
Thanks
Posted Oct 2, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC
04
Are you asking fi you will get caught or if you're legally able to?
Legally able to. Would rather do it right
There is no such thing as abondonware. Thats a term that pirate sites used to loosely catagorize stuff. And there is defiantly no legal recongization of the term.
You copying the design of the character is infrigment. If your goal is make it obvious its those characters, its infrigment.
It does not matter if you sell or not. It may impact how the copyright holders claim in damages.
If you're actually interested in doing it right, then someone still owns it. The other company more then likely did a firesale and someone bought the assest. And this may be hard and maybe very expensive to figure out.
Thank you for that. Will avoid it.