For my Archon remake I approached Jon Freeman (the designer) directly. I believe EA's ownership of the Archon name expired some time ago, and ownership returned to the designers/developers. Jon was very helpful (he provided me with much of the original C source code) and was happy for the project to continue to develop. The only caveat was that we cease development should he decide to do something himself. Fair enough. He was also happy for us to potentially make money from the venture, but I decided to continue down the freeware route.