GW redoing Fantasy Flight's stuff

[Bryan Blaire]

I doubt Hasbro (who now own MB) would have been able to do anything, the only thing they'd have had claim to was the trademark and that would have lapsed (copyright is eternal, trademarks are fleeting) along with Heroquest before FFG acquired the license.

Not entirely true. While I wouldn't use Wikipedia as any kind of legal advice, the duration of copyright is set for less than eternal: List of Countries' Copyright Lengths

 

Generally copyright is not the issue for a work produced under license, and the licenses usually have specific limitations for what companies can and can't take legal action over regarding works produced (including who owns what under copyright - the licensee may own certain portions of the material produced/used, depending on point of origin, while the licensor may have other copyright claims). Licensees rarely have full IP rights on their products, because the licensor already has the main claims (if they did have full IP rights, that would be really weird and make the concept of the license useless as it would give the licensee rights over the licensor's separate works). A lot of what can and can't be done with a licensed work after the fact is usually spelled out in the contract for the license, and it often includes "derivative works allowed to be produced". Companies generally aren't going to make a lot of effort, make something popular for a few years, then allow some other company to come along and start producing the same/similar material and capitalizing on the previous effort.

 

In this case, I'm guessing that there were some license issues regarding the concepts of Space Crusade itself that others weren't allowed to reproduce without a license from all parties involved in the original, which may have been burdensome. I would guess that whatever is being used to produce that weird Space Crusade (if anything) gets around that issue by not seeming to be anything like the original (even using different gendered, scantly clad gaming pieces).

 

Now, depending on the license, they might be able to produce a Space Crusade-like game by changing the name and units used, etc., but that might be kinda crappy, because IIRC, that would mean things other than Marines and Dreads. I think that would almost defeat the purpose of GW wanting to redo the game (again, depending on the contents of the license documents, etc. - they may just have to wait for the duration of the license + granted rights + inherent rights to end).