Comment by ChuckMcM
10 years ago
Possibly, in reading the article it seemed that Activision, 20th Century, and Warner could not agree on who owned the rights. As it mentioned that is unresolvable directly (none of the three are publishing a new version or re-using the content). So the only way to resolve the ownership question is to draw a lawsuit, where either the courts will find that it has been abandoned (win) or they argue amongst themselves and come up with one person who is the owner.
I'm not a lawyer but if there is a writ you could file to have the courts declare it abandoned, that would work too, perhaps @rayiner will step in on that question.
As far as I know, copyright doesn't expire even if the work is "abandoned" or even "orphaned" (like when a company folds without transferring it). There were two bills to change this, but neither went through: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works_in_the_United_Sta...