http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/12/hasbro-sues-atari-over-dd-license-atari-responds/
Wonder if this includes those re-releases of the D&D games that happened recently. If we're lucky, Hasbro might be trying to consolidate the licenses for all of the D&D stuff made, could make negotiations for the rights to certain games a bit easier

Actually, if the rights default back to Hasbro it will probably become significantly more difficult to reacquire the licenses for re-releasing them. The majority of licensed games never get re-released for this and other reasons.

Wow, that is really surprising. In the past, Hasbro and Atari have had a very good working relationship, its hard to believe they couldn't work out this issue amicably.

Wow I am surprised at this. I hope it gets fixed so GoG can bring Planescape: Torment to the website.

Well one of the unsubstantiated conspiracy theories in various comments I read was that its an attempt to kill off the D&D online game that aparently isn't beating WoW and is therefore a failure and they want to make a new MMO with 4th edition rules.
Apparently the recipe for success involves making people buy and subscribe to a new game using a rule set that a lot of people seem not to like and pitting it against a giant of the industry that is, for all intents and purposes, the same

Hmm, I might have to get NWN2 soon then. I'll probably never be able to get a legal copy of the goldbox games, but honestly I didn't really enjoy them that much anyway (the ... eh, "abandonware" releases I've downloaded, tried, and subsequently deleted). I already have all the Infinity Engine games plus NWN and its expansions. The latter is DRM free by now and the former are easy enough to sidestep (using full installs and a single "mini" image to keep them all happy while not needing to crack the exe's), so I'm pretty content as it is.
Of course, Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor and Temple of Elemental Evil are not accounted for (the latter is not by Atari, but Troika). I've only played them very shortly and barely remember them at all, I'd like to be able to play them again some time though.

I've never played ToEE but I hear its kind of shitty. Ruins of Myth Drannor, on the other hand, I HAVE played and I can say with experience that it IS shitty. Not the worst D&D game I've ever played but you can tell ther game was rushed and the 3rd edition ruleset they used was still in beta because there's a fair few things that just didn't work

Oh, right, that's probably as good a reason as any for why I didn't play them for long enough to remember them.

Troika was just the developer of ToEE, not the publisher. Atari was the publisher, so it could still get caught up in this.

Right, I mixed them up, it was PoR:RoMD that didn't have anything to do with Atari, it was published by Ubisoft. However, I believe Ubi doesn't carry a valid license to sell D&D games at the moment (since a few years ago).

Hehe well it could be argued that they wouldn't be selling a D&D game if they sold that again...

Actually, you may be right, seeing how Hasbro/WotC seemingly doesn't want to acknowledge any D&D ruleset other than the current one at any given time.
But then, the game world would still be a problem even if they change all mentions of "Dungeons and Dragons" to "Deep Caves and Flying Lizards".

Oh, and here's why abandonware is so a great thing.....

But its destroying the industry! Its worse than downloading games illegally when there's no demo multiplied by selling games second hand!
There has to be some legal reason that companies with extensive back catalogues are not making money off their old stuff, it wouldn't outsell modern hits but it'd still bring in more money than it'd cost...

My feelings is that it's a combination of greed and stupidity. A company doesn't want a property floating around the net for free. Which is their right and perfectly understandable. But that same company won't re-release those older games because:
A) The demand isn't enough for a large company with a large overhead to make a profit.
or
B) A re-release of an older game in a franchise would affect sales of a newer release in that franchise. Especially if the older game is considered a classic.
So huge publishers that have a huge inventory of franchises sit on them because they really don't know what to do and/or how to do it for a profit. These companies should come to GOG with their "in limbo" properties. ;)