From what I've read on a few french websites, Ryzom's rights were granted by "le tribunal de commerce de Paris" to SpiderWeb International Limited (some British company) for 213 000 €. It's no longer owned by Gameforge (who previously took the rights off Nevrax France).
Virtual Citizenship Association (which includes former Ryzom developpers) wanted to buy it back once again and make it Open Source, but apparently they weren't able to do so (lack of money I guess).
They also say that they don't know if the server/characters data can be retrieved, since there's technically no more servers and employees.
http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite...cede-spiderweb