This is my opinion on the subject, and it may not be 100% factual..

All manufacturers that produced pinball machines patented the parts that made up the machines. This includes the art

There are two types of games that were produced - Licensed and unlicensed. Licensed pins required a third party license

An example of a licensed pin - KISS, Nugent, Addams Family, Gun's N Roses
An example of an unlicensed pin - Supersonic, Joker Poker, Fishtales

A licensed pin requires the third party license holder to give permission to produce the machine. So KISS, Ted Nugent and Guns N Roses would have given permission to produce the machine and any parts that have their likeness. Same with Addams Family, BUT - there are several license holders - Addams Family Trust and Paramount Pictures would be two that comes to mind.

An unlicensed pin needs no third party license holder.

The owners of the respective licenses can produce parts, but it becomes difficult to produce parts that have a Third party license.
You can produce KISS plastics after gaining permission from WMS Industries AND KISS.
You can produce Supersonic or Joker Poker plastics with permission from WMS Industries or Gottlieb LLC respecively

With all reproduction parts, you need to speak to the license holder (whoever that may be), or you will be infringing copyright as they own the license to that product. Copyright infringement depends on what company owns that license, and it can be acted upon by that license holder, OR the third party license holder.


This is MY OPINION and it could be inaccurate.