Try contacting Rick and see what he says. He gives out his phone number on the forum all the time and says for people to call him. I'm not saying you'll like the answer, but I think you will be able to get in contact with him and find out what is going on.

They didn't go out of business. They stopped producing pinball machines but are still in business. They still own the rights to their intellectual property. Rick is the person that paid for the ability to enforce and collect royalties for those rights, and give them their cut. That's not a troll, that's business. I understand that Rick may not be Mr. Popularity due to his persona on the forums, but he isn't trolling in the way you are describing things.

What is aggravating is that copyright was specifically intended to grant rights for a limited amount of time so that works would eventually enter the public domain. As things are now, and as things will probably continue as Mickey Mouse comes closer to entering the public domain, we'll never see current works enter the public domain. Never. Copyright holders will bribe congress to change the laws so that their works never see public domain.

Imagine a world where the Bible was still copyrighted. Beethoven, copyrighted. Shakespeare, copyrighted. Mona Lisa, copyrighted. The Last Supper, copyrighted. That's the direction we're headed since the latter part of the 20th century.

I have no problem with copyright itself. I think people should be paid for their work and be able to protect it and profit from it. I have a problem with the ridiculous status of our current copyright law and how it has been extended to protect Mickey Mouse. Yes, you should be able to profit from your work. But your grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren? I don't think that was the original intent of copyright.

I also have a problem with how our government uses its power to bully other countries with more reasonable copyright laws into changing theirs to become as ridiculous as ours.

As you mentioned, even if Mickey Mouse entered the public domain, there would still be restrictions on his use due to him being trademarked. That's fine and totally understandable.

I hope you are right and when we get closer to 2023 we won't see things further pushed back into perpetuity.

Here's what's on PPS's web site:

http://www.planetarypinball.com/docs/PPS%20Rights%20Letter%20-%20SGI-WEG.pdf

http://www.planetarypinball.com/docs/PPS%20Rights%20Overview.pdf