The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-06-04, 15:32:
Sometimes software can be in copyright limbo and nobody could claim it. For example, No One Lives Forever, by all definitions, is abandonware. It happens sometimes during company bankruptcies and mergers.
There are no concrete definitions about abandonware yet, but in this case it may be considered as one... IANAL, however. Even so, some old games that appeared to be in this kind of state did manage to end up in GOG.
But I think there are already some established boundaries. Back then some abandonware/ROM sites would openly refuse to host anything that is protected under the ESA umbrella, in order to avoid getting into trouble.
The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-06-04, 15:32:
And after certain period of time, it will become public domain.
The big ones can push more laws to extend the copyright length so as to make sure their works never ever fall into the public domain, if desired. They did not recover copyrights that have already entered public domain, but the acts affected all copyrights that are still in effect, not just theirs.
At present, no new laws have been made to extend copyright even further yet, so since 2019 works once again begin entering public domain, but who knows what could happen in the future...