Imagine publishing 'buys' Zzap! and Crash

[CraigGrannell]

On Twitter, Damian Butt (Imagine MD—Imagine being Retro Gamer's publisher) has announced "we now own the rights and copyright to classic UK games mags - Crash and Zzap!64". This has kicked off an… interesting thread on Facebook, regarding who actually owns what now, the implications for fan sites, and the complexity of liquidation in general (not least that Zzap! and Crash rights never fully got rolled into Europress anyway). Fun times ahead. One can only hope Imagine continues to support fan sites going forwards…

[Iain]

Wow, this a big deal. I had assumed buying the rights wasn't really possible so nobdy seemed to know who owned what etc.

Let's hope it doesn't compicate things. At least it's not Future that got it anyway, that would be the end of this site...

[Iain]

That Facebook link above doesn't work unless you are friends with either / and (dunno) Roger / Craig, but basically it's a conversation of wondering what they could own and what they definitely don't own etc. and how they got it.

[andy vaisey]

Hopefully Imagine don't start throwing their weight around too much...

[PaulEMoz]

There goes Issue 108!

What?

[Professor Brian Strain]

Hopefully Imagine don't start throwing their weight around too much...

I can't see them stopping fan sites, the problem could be if Imagine start selling reprints...

[Iain]

Selling reprints would seem unlikely though. You would need all rights from so many different people / sources to do that legitimately, surely?

Even Future probably couldn't do that with their old magazines if rights reverted back to freelanchers etc.

[CraigGrannell]

Yep. Zzap!64 and Crash are from a different era, and I imagine any contracts were First British Serial Rights (versus today's 'we own whatever you write forever, mwahaha' equivalents), meaning even Newsfield wouldn't have been able to reprint content without permission, unless it was generated in-house. But reprints are murkier than that. From what Roger's been saying, full Zzap!64 rights never went to Europress anyway; the Europress liquidation report doesn't even refer to magazine titles; Crash was 'swapped' with an EMAP ST mag and EMAP was bought by Bauer; and Oli at no point ever assigned full copyright for any art to Newsfield, meaning he still owns full rights on all his art, unless it's been explicitly licensed or sold on somewhere else.

I can't imagine there'd be any value in reprints anyway. In fact, I can't see there's really any value in those brands, although 'Crash' would still be a fantastic name for a computing publication.

[Iain]

Interesting discussion going over on the Retro Gamer forum about this, although no new info as such:

http://www.retrogamer.net/forum/viewtop ... 30774a2135

[Terry93D]

This is exceedingly interesting. And very murky on copyrights, too. I'm wondering what the aftereffects are going to be and what Imagine does with whatever bits of Crash and Zzap!64 they own. Actually, that terminology is quite good: Imagine owns bits of Crash and Zzap!64, seeing as the copyright issues are so... complex.