But independent of this situation, the assertion on its face appears
to be that knowing only who the physical content creator is gives you
sufficient information to conclude who controls the resulting content
legally.  If so, I just want to say that this reflects a profound lack
of understanding of the intricacies of intellectual property law.

Moreover, coming back to the specific situation, the only other useful
piece of information I can add is that what makes the Lisp Machine valuable
is that it is the product of a large number of people collaborating on
the hardware AND software.  It is no single person's effort.  The idea
that some single person among that set can control the entire use of all
of that software is also highly questionable.  The only way I can think of
that one person can control it is by buying it.