[OT] Interplay BG copyright? Anyone in the know?

[Darklance]

Bioware developed BG I and BG II. Interplay publishes it for them. Straighten me out here.

-I believe that Interplay bought the license to develop D&D products and gave it out to Bioware (or gave them permission to make one title maybe?).

-BGI is a huge success and all are happy with the sales. Interplay decides Hey, I can steal Biowares infinity engine and crank out another one just like it. Ice Wind Dale is release along with PS Torment.

-BG II is released- another big success as far as I know.

-Their license is about to go dry and interplay cranks out Bauldur's Gate, Dark alliance.

-Bioware is still developing NWN at this time and get into a lawsuit with interplay (reason?) Interplay will no longer publish it so Infrogrames (the new owner of the license) agrees to.

-Black Isle Studios (A development team that does Interplays D&D products and a division of the company if I'm not mistaken) gets interplay to buy a new lease of the liscense from Infrogrames. IWD II and BG DA for Xbox go into production.

Now....

1. How is Interplay (BIS) using the term "BG" with everything? Does Bioware own any rights to the title?

2. How the hell are they using the Bioware's Infinity Engine (considering their bad relations with Bioware) now?

Any other comments and discussion on the topic would be welcome. I've always been annoyed for Biowares sake that Interplay uses the term BG for everything. And that they could not even make their own engine to the stuff out. Thanks.

 

[trancejeremy]

I believe when a company hires another company to do work for them, the company that hires the other company owns the final work.

So, Interplay owns the Balder's Gate games, because it hired Bioware to make them. They didn't sub-license it - that's not how it works, typically. They simply hired Bioware to make the games for them.

At the time, Interplay also had the D&D license to FR. So, Bioware basically had to go back and work out a deal with Interplay to get NWN published (which it did) - it had no other legal options.

It's not unlike Interplay, EA, and The Bard's Tale (or Wasteland). At the time, Interplay was a developer (of sorts) and made the game, Bard's Tale, published by EA. Eventually Interplay also became a publisher, but doesn't own the rights to Bard's Tale, even though it made the original games (Wasteland, too).

 

[Neowolf]

Not sure if this helps out any, but it seems like I read somewhere a while back that "Dungeons and Dragons" and "Baldur's Gate" are technically different licenses. Last I heard, Hasbro sold the D&D license (for videogames) to Infogrames, but Interplay still has the BG license. It seems that I read that around the time that BG: Dark Alliance came out, since someone was trying to explain why DA was called a BG game when it's not connected to any of the others.

 

[RogueJK]

Infrogrames does own the copyright to make Dungeons and Dragons computer games. Interplay just recently licensed it from them, though. They are currently working on BGA for the Xbox, Icewind Dale 2, and another (unnamed, so far) Baldur's Gate sequel.

Neowolf is right... sorta. The two copyrights are seperate, yet joined. You can make a D&D game without the Baldur's Gate license. You only need the D&D license. However, you can't make a Baldur's Gate game without both the D&D and BG licenses. Interplay only had the BG one until recently, when it grabbed the D&D license.

You can read the complete press release from Interplay at www.planetbg.com. It's at the top of today's news.

 

[Fyrie]

Not to confuse things further, but IIRC Interplay has the rights to FR realms until 2004, but this non-exclusive as far as Infrogames goes.

Not sure, but that is how I remember it.