I read up on some of this in the RGP archives. Seems the guy that shut down ballsofsteel only owned the rights to bally stuff, but was making claims he could also shut down any Williams stuff. Even though he didn't have a case, most people that see legal letters from lawyers usually won't fight, especially if they're doing it for free for the good of pinball.
It really kills me that there are these license holders out there just sitting on them instead of using that license to actually.. I don't know, recproduce some of this artwork and make a profit off it instead chasing down people who do it for free simply because nobody out there is willing to do it?
I've thought about this a lot, I wonder if someone ran a website on a server in another country (or even offshore like pirate bay does), and fake the whois entry (good luck contacting me), could someone get away with running a ballsofsteel site again?