Ultima creator Richard Garriott (better known as Lord British) has mapped out a plan to regain control of the rights to his legendary RPG franchise from its current owner, EA. The key to making it happen, surprisingly, lies in a relatively lesser-known copyright rule from around 50 years ago.
EA secured the Ultima license, along with Origin Systems—the developer behind it—in 1992, and later closed the studio in 2004. Since then, Garriott has repeatedly shared his wish to bring Ultima back under his direction. He often posts his thoughts on X and most recently said to Inside Games, “Every decade or so, I have attempted to collaborate with EA on a revival of Ultima. They always appeared genuinely interested to initiate discussions, only to withdraw from them just as swiftly.”
Garriott’s comments arrive after EA unveiled new trademarks for the Ultima name. What’s notable is that these filings don’t look like a routine renewal of ownership. One is submitted under Class 041 (video game), while the other falls under Class 009 (downloadable video game) trademark.
This may suggest EA is weighing one of two directions. It could be preparing to do something with the Ultima intellectual property—there hasn’t been a fresh release since 2013’s short-lived free-to-play mobile outing, Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar. Alternatively, EA might be reinforcing its position against another party hoping to make use of the IP. That brings us to Richard Garriott.
Garriott appears to have a specific approach in mind. As he explained to Inside Games, he wants to pull the series’ copyright back from EA under Section 203 of the Copyright Act of 1976. Under this clause, after 35 years, the original creator of a work is able to reclaim their copyright. Since this mechanism is available to creators in the USA, Garriott would only need to file a signed, written notification with the copyright office, at which point the Ultima copyright would return to him. The following year, Garriott would then be fully positioned to recover the copyright.
It’s worth emphasizing an important difference between copyright and trademark. As Inside Games notes, copyright covers a game’s source code as well as its overall look and feel, while trademark is what protects a game’s brand identity. So even if Garriott manages to regain the copyright, he wouldn’t be able to release a brand-new title called “Ultima,” but he could create a game that strongly resembles Ultima.
Garriott claims, “‘Lord British’s Ultima’ will recover all the copyrights of my original creation. What it ultimately evolves into is the next challenge.”