> I have a strong feeling MS will put out a statement that they own the end poem and it is not public domain.
I don’t think they would do that. That would be unbelievably stupid from a legal department. The funny thing with this sort of IP in most of Europe (though this could be different in Sweden but I really doubt it) is that nobody except the author can own it. All they can have is an exclusive license. If they are convinced of this and wanted to clear things up, they will sue. But they probably won’t because the guy is probably right.
> it’s actually irrelevant because no one bought the game because of the poem.
That’s a very wrong take. IP laws deal with copying and distributing works. You won’t get out of a lawsuit saying that it was not significant (unless you are pleading fair use, but it clearly was not the case here).
Whether the work is important or not does not matter before we talk about compensation. And then, an insignificant fraction of a few billions is still quite a bit of money.
It doesn’t matter because they have a license to use the work, which is all they have been doing. They aren’t running around saying it’s their property because no one has asked them that.
Now even though they are put on the spotlight, they don’t really need to do anything.
> It doesn’t matter because they have a license to use the work
If they don’t have a contract, they don’t have a license. Again, in some common law jurisdiction they do things like implicit contracts and informal agreements. This is not going to fly in most European countries. No contract = no agreement = no license.
> Now even though they are put on the spotlight, they don’t really need to do anything.
Well yeah. The best move in their situation is not to move. Particularly once the text is published with an open license.
In the US for copyright to transfer he'd need to be an employee and writing part of his work duties, in which case it is work for hire, or if he is a contractor they'd need a signed contract saying the contractor was performing this as work for hire, or a contract explicitly transferring ownership. They did pay him for it so Mojang had an implied license to use it but he retains ownership.
When Mojang sold Minecraft to Microsoft, they did not own the copyright and did not have a contract saying they have the right to transfer their implied license, therefore Microsoft actually is violating copyright here.
Source: I went through exactly this same legal scenario and won.
Wait, I thought Minecraft bought out Mojang, not bought Minecraft from Mojang? If they really did just buy the game and not the entire company, I think you're right and Microsoft may be in violation. If they bought the company, they would have inherited the license as I understand it.
EDIT: IANAL but as long as Minecraft continues being sold by Mojang, not Microsoft, it shouldn't matter whether Microsoft owns the company or not as long as the implied contract was with Mojang, not e.g. Notch.
You're right, they acquired Mojang and its transferable assets. But those assets don't include the implied license since there is no contract saying it is a transferable license.
I don’t think they would do that. That would be unbelievably stupid from a legal department. The funny thing with this sort of IP in most of Europe (though this could be different in Sweden but I really doubt it) is that nobody except the author can own it. All they can have is an exclusive license. If they are convinced of this and wanted to clear things up, they will sue. But they probably won’t because the guy is probably right.
> it’s actually irrelevant because no one bought the game because of the poem.
That’s a very wrong take. IP laws deal with copying and distributing works. You won’t get out of a lawsuit saying that it was not significant (unless you are pleading fair use, but it clearly was not the case here).
Whether the work is important or not does not matter before we talk about compensation. And then, an insignificant fraction of a few billions is still quite a bit of money.