Hi Malim.
I am but a lowly marketing troll and don’t know everything or have all the answers but I will do my best to answer your questions (though take them with a pinch of salt).
The idea of who owns a company and what a company owns are confusing and beyond what my brain can handle today, so your first question is a little difficult.
Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd is owned by a few of people. First and foremost of that small group of people is ICE Director Nicholas Caldwell. Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd holds the rights to the intellectual property surrounding Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Shadow World, HARP Fantasy, HARP SF, CyberSpace, Silent Death and maybe a few other smaller bits and pieces. This does not mean that we own the rights to everything that has ever been produced under those properties or that we own the rights to everything Iron Crown Enterprises has ever produced (I told you it was confusing). Whether it is a new product or one that was produced way back, we need the agreement of the authors of those products to allow us to sell them (except in instances where the authors were working as ICE staff at the time (I think – Complicated).
We are realistic in our appraisal of our market strength. We’re never going to take on D&D. We want to produce high quality products that meet the standards and expectations of our existing fans and we hope to pick up some new fans along the way but we’re a small company staffed almost entirely by freelancers and volunteers.
I think what is quoted above from Nicholas neatly answers the Shadow World question.
I hope that helped.
Colin (The Marketing Troll)