A Dream
 

Last night I had this dream... in which I visited the forum here only to find that Aaron Hall had unexpectedly passed away! 8-O But apparently before he died he willed the existing source code to SE5 to the community, and Tesco and David Gervais were starting to head up an effort to build SE5 on their own! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

I'm not a lawyer, but if my understanding is correct, let this be a reminder to everyone to will their intellectual property to SOMEONE, ANYONE, so that it isn't lost in the morass of copyrighted IP which no one actually owns! 8-O

Re: A Dream
 

There has to be someone around to enforce the copyright for it to mean anything... since Malfador Machinations is Aaron Hall... the copyright would be meaningless, were he to die...

Re: A Dream
 

If that were true every song and book would go straight to the public domain when the author died, and that does not happen.

Re: A Dream
 

sounds logical, geoschmo

Re: A Dream
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Most songs and books are technically owned by the publishers, so there is someone to enforce the copyright... SE4 is copyright Malfador Machinations, not Shrapnel Games. Since at this point MM is just Aaron Hall, it disappears with his death. There would be noone that could enforce the copyright via law suits. Now, if MM had more employees and was thus able to survive the death of Aaron Hall, it would be able to enforce the copyright.

Of course, there could be a clause that the copyright goes to Shrapnel Games upon Aaron's demise, in which case this is all moot.

[ June 28, 2004, 19:23: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: A Dream
 

We could just form a "Church of Aaron" and declare the source code for SEV as a holy scripture of sorts. I'm pretty sure no-one owns rights to the bible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ June 28, 2004, 19:22: Message edited by: Raging Deadstar ]

Re: A Dream
 

Wouldnt it be considered an asset of his estate and be inherited by whoever got everything else?

Re: A Dream
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">From what I remember of my law class in high school, that is what would happen. The copyright (in the US at least) will remain the property of the estate of the deceased for fifty (50) years after the date of death.

I believe Fyron's point is that there wouldn't be anyone inheriting the estate to enforce the copyright. But I'm pretty sure Aaron's married, so his wife would have ownership of all copyrights (spouses automatically inherit all their deceased partner's assets in the absence of a will).

I wonder what Aaron would think about a bunch of his fans contemplating his death publicly? Sort of morbid... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: A Dream
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I did want to point this out but forgot too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif We're just making sure his legend lives on... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ June 28, 2004, 19:52: Message edited by: Raging Deadstar ]

Re: A Dream
 

Incredible morbid.