Re: Software problems now
What they're saying is that a former-director ran around all the rightsholders and is convincing them to withdraw the rights.
This is a big allegation which requires some big proof.
But that aside - if you have a right to use a game, then you have a right to use a game. Worded anywhere near sensibly, the rightsholders can't just unilaterally revoke that right for no reason.
My guess is that they never had the rights at all, ever, never sought them, and now someone's going around going "You know your games are being sold over here, don't you?" and that's gaining them EXPLICIT refusals to use the property in that way from the rightsholders.
For all the bluster, they have no answer - they didn't have the rights. Then they claimed they did. Now suddenly it's all the fault of "some other guy" that they don't any more.
Either you have them, or you don't. If you don't, you can't distribute that thing (abandonware has no basis in law - no ability to gain permission does not mean you have permission). So unless they had 1000 signed, sealed pieces of paper on their desk for all the games they wanted to distribute, and somehow someone has not only stolen those bits of paper, but returned to the rightsholders, convinced them a contract doesn't exist, torn up all evidence of the bits of paper, and then all 1000 of them colluded to keep that quiet... then it's a nonsense.
At the very least, if they have ONE signed contract with a rightsholder, they could tell you the name of the game it was for. They haven't. They were just hoping to slap out all the devices, stick a copy of World of Spectrum's archives on it, sell it for profit and be gone before anyone noticed.