Loved the game from the moment I layed my eyes on it long time ago... Finished it on my old black and white monitor almost fifteen years ago ... Played Ur-Quan Masters ... Was very happy when I saw it released again here ... Bought it immidiately after release.... and prefer it over lot of new games with flashy graphics but hollow content...

Then I read this thread back over UQM forum...

http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=5001.0

If Atari really lost right to (re)publish it ... what's it doing on GOG? WTF?!

Toys for bob is developer, but publisher their games at that time was Accolade, which was bought by Atari.

True... and I had no problem with that ... but (there's always but) ... accordingly to that thread ... toys for bob has rights on content of the game ... and Atari lost rights to publish game ...

Don't get me wrong ... I'm happy to see it here on GOG... I just wonder what is true story behind it... and whether Atari really "jumped the gun" with this release....

I think Atari have rights to publish, copy and so on, but probably Toys for Bob have old rights to get some royalties.

It's possible that they have rights on "some" of the content. As an example, while EA owns the rights on the francise Ultima, Richard Garriott still owns the rights on some of the characters in it (most probably: Lord British).
Doesn't matter here anyway. Apparently Atari believes to had the right to publish and the developer believes otherwise. Speculating on unknown legal facts is just that, so let the lawyers do their work.

I hope it won't turn out bad and that the developers will get royalties from it in the end.

Also, content rights are not the same as distribution rights. As long as Atari still clearly holds the distribution rights (I question the validity of random anonymous internet posts claiming otherwise), they can sell the game wherever they want, regardless of what content TFB (now Activision) might own the rights to. If TFB does still hold content rights on the game, they do deserve to get some royalties from the GOG sales, but again, don't believe everything you read on the internet, TFB might have sold off those rights long ago.

Remember kids, buy the games now, or else they'll be pulled and you won't be able to get them again!