And? He never agreed to transfer his rights.
The entire situation is very messy. Mojang fucked up by failing to get the contract signed and failing to even notice it. OTOH the writer seems like a contractor from hell who you wouldn't ever want to deal with, and that's based on his side of the story.
And that is why:
> His claim to own the rights in the first place is totally dubious.
Is flat out wrong.
Not to say they have no case, sure, verbal agreements are agreements too.
HOWEVER, when the written contract is significantly different from the verbal agreement, the case that the written contract is binding, is highly dubious.
What, if I agree to pay you a dollar for a stick figure drawing and you send me a contract saying I agree to give you my house, is it binding if I keep the dollar? Did I implicitly agree to 'whatever you want' in an unwritten contract because I agreed to some verbal agreement?
The answer is definitely not.
There's a reason companies use legal written contracts. ...because they unambiguously assign rights; they did not do that. Therefore, it's Mojang's claim to the rights which is dubious, not the author.