Intellectual Property protection for video games

The paper examines intellectual property (IP) protection for both UK and Chinese games companies with digital contents as their key intangible assets. The objective is to evaluate the efficacy of the IP system and advocate a legal reform for a more efficacious legal system. The research questions of the paper are (1) whether the current IP law has afforded adequate protection for games; (2) how the IP legal regime can be reformed to effectively protect the industry whilst maintaining a delicate balance between IP owners and other stakeholders, like the platform and the end user. The primary focus of the paper in on copyright, which has been involved in most disputes over the contents. Moreover, it undertakes a broader approach to examine how other IPs, including patent and design, have been utilized by games developers to protect both contents and physical operating systems.The current research on the IP protection of video games is much confined to the law per se and therefore unable to address the challenges brought by technologies. The literature lacks the understanding of the technological, social, and cultural factors that influence the making and enforcement of the law. Without a thorough understanding of the dynamics between the industry and the market, it is impossible to seek an optimal model of IP protection for video games. The paper examines how businesses selectively employ different IP strategies to maximize their profit. Based on the observation, it analyzes the rationale of those choices. It discusses how the IP legal concepts of originality, idea/expression dichotomy, novelty and inventiveness that underpin the creation of copyright, patent, and design rights have affected the choice of the route for protection. Deriving from the current movement of theorizing IP as a complex adaptive system, we argue that the modular structure of IP, particularly copyright, is incapable of providing efficacious protection to games in a new virtual world with immersive technologies and a significantly higher degree of interaction. A more holistic approach needs to be adopted for games. This paper is divided into five sections. The first section categorizes digital games based on the criteria typically applied within the games industry, including genre classification and the impacts of platform, technologies, and user generated content on original game design. The second section develops the theoretical approaches from game studies to conceptualise what is and is not expression. The third section examines the development perspectives on the individual code, image, and audio components of games. At the highest level, the core and shell model separate gameplay (the core) from the representation of ideas within the game (the shell). However, this level of abstraction does not necessarily map well to copyright protection, if the assumption is that the original expression within games is constrained to its representational and dramatic elements. The MDA framework stresses a distinction between mechanics (the game rules) and dynamics (the operation and behaviour of those mechanics at run-time). Lastly, at the most granular level of game categorisation we can consider all the individual text, code, graphic, and audio-based elements that are generated as part of the production cycle. The fourth section examines the scenarios where patent and design rights have been utilized to protect games by examining relevant UK and Chinese cases involving IP disputes. It analyzes the rationale of the alternative routes of protection and the resultant legal implications for games companies. The final section recommends an optimal model for IP protection for games and concludes that IP as a complex adaptive system can well apply to the protection of games.<br/

Patenting Games: Baker v. Selden Revisited

Patents are meant to protect the functional aspects of an invention. But patents, particularly patents on processes or methods, can cover non-functional, or expressive, activity. This Article explores this possibility in the context of patents covering games of various types. Patents on games can cover the actual play or use of a game with consequent implications for user-generated content produced by playing games. The Article documents this possibility in the area of fantasy sports and video games and proposes two solutions. The first solution relies on the Federal Circuit\u27s recent decision in In re Bilski, which restricts the patenting of processes that produce social transformations, and explores the implications of this case for patents on games. The second solution draws on the Supreme Court\u27s decision in Baker v. Selden, a precedent associated with restrictions on copyrightable subject matter that purported to establish a boundary between patent and copyright. Consequently, the precedent has implications for patentable subject matter as well as for copyrightable subject matter. The Article concludes that the precedent of Baker v.Selden excludes functional subject matter from copyright protection and non-functional, or expressive, subject matter from patent protection. Therefore, patents on processes should not extend to the non-functional uses of the invention, such as the actual playing of a game by users of a patented game

Order of first-play in simulated versus monetary gambling

Background and aimsSimulated gambling products, like loot boxes and social casino games, contain gambling elements, but are not classified as gambling. They are available to minors, raising concerns about a “gateway effect” into gambling. This study examined the time course of young people's engagement in simulated and monetary gambling, and associations between simulated gambling and gambling problems and harm. A necessary, although not sufficient, condition for simulated games leading to real money gambling is that simulated play must come first.MethodParticipants were 1,026 young adults (aged 18–25 years) who played video games in the last year. They reported the age at which they first took part in seven simulated and twelve monetary gambling products, and current gambling problems and harm.ResultsFirst use of loot boxes and video games with gambling content tended to precede monetary gambling. Forms where gambling is a core gameplay element, such as social casino and demonstration games, tended to follow some monetary gambling forms. Engagement in most simulated gambling products was associated with greater harm from monetary gambling.DiscussionThe findings leave open the possibility of a catalyst pathway from youth engagement in loot boxes and games with gambling content to later monetary gambling, but causal psychosocial mechanisms remain unclear. However, a pathway from social casino and demonstration games to monetary gambling appears less likely, which may instead reflect containment or substitution effects. Simulated gambling disproportionately attracts youth who are vulnerable to gambling problems and harm, indicating the need for consumer protection measures

Protection of Video Games under Indian and the United States of America Copyright Law

Video games raise various legal questions and challenges for the IPR system, mainly due to the complexity and segmentation of the game and there is some particular problem with a particular video like trademark registration, and copyrighted content directly such as sound effects. The current area of the legal protection of video games is very complex. Though Art. 2 of the Berne Convention protects video games under copyright protection. Vidoe game is also subject to protection under the national law of the member states, protection of video games is required in the world of technology and creativity. The modern game contains audiovisual few features software that interacts with a different part of the video game. The present study employs the doctrinal method of research and is limited to the protection of video games under the Indian Copyright protection and the United State of America Copyright Protection

The need for Open Educational Resources for ubiquitous learning

Open Educational Resources (OER) are important for the expansion of ubiquitous learning. Open licensing of learning components is a precondition for supporting anytime, anywhere learning, whether the lessons are arranged as text, multimedia, videos, applications, games or in other electronic formats. The obstacles presented by proprietary materials impede ubiquitous sharing of knowledge with the use of technological protection measures such as DRM (digital rights management), prohibitive licensing, and restrictions on format shifting, localization, content sharing and other activities considered essential in ubiquitous learning

Content-Based Copyright Denial

No principle of First Amendment law is more firmly established than the principle that government may not restrict speech based on its content. It would seem to follow, then, that Congress may not withhold copyright protection for disfavored categories of content, such as violent video games or pornography. This Article argues otherwise. This Article is the first to recognize a distinction in the scope of coverage between the First Amendment and the Copyright Clause. It claims that speech protection from government censorship does not imply speech protection from private copying. Crucially, I argue that this distinction in the scope of coverage between copyright and free speech law does not suggest a tension between them. To the contrary, the distinction enables copyright to further the purpose of free speech under the marketplace-of-ideas speech theory. Through copyright, Congress may alleviate failures in that marketplace which stem from individuals determining the value of speech for the collective. Furthermore, the possibility of Congress abusing this discriminatory power poses relatively minimal threat to speech because copyright denial does not altogether prevent speakers from realizing profit from their speech. This fact, coupled with viewpoint-neutrality and rational-basis restraints, alleviates the usual risks associated with government influencing content in the marketplace. Additionally, free-speech doctrine leaves room for the sort of discrimination that Congress would exercise in defining copyright eligibility according to content. Doctrines governing limited-public forums and congressional funding allow for content discrimination akin to content-based copyright denial

Protecting Video Game Gameplay Creators: A Two-Pronged Copyright Approach

The video game industry continues to grow into a behemoth, yet the players fueling its rise lack sufficient copyright protection. While the Copyright Act protects video games’ copyrightability as audiovisual works, it lacks clear protection for the gameplay created by gameplay content creators. These secondary creators increasingly build careers out of their gameplay yet lack clear copyright protection over the videos they create because the video game developer typically owns the video game’s exclusive rights over public performance and derivative works. The status quo relies on a “gentleman’s agreement” where video game copyright holders ignore their rights in the copyright and allow gameplay creators to build careers while the copyright holders reap the benefits from the publicity. However, the copyright holders maintain the power to end a gameplay creator’s career by simply enforcing their rights. Several proposals provide workable solutions but fall short of meaningful protection. Most proposals argue stretching the Copyright Act’s existing language to meet the video game industry’s needs while recognizing the Act lacks sufficient language for the industry’s distinctive nature. To overcome the ambiguity in interpreting dated law to a nascent industry, this Note proposes an amendment to the Copyright Act that provides a tailored approach to copyright protection for gameplay creators. This Note first proposes a declaration of non-infringement for a gameplay creator’s videos of their own gameplay from nonlinear video games. This Note secondly proposes the use of a sui generis right that recognizes the significant effort by gameplay creators in creating their gameplay videos and rewards the effort with narrow but sufficient copyright protection over their individual audiovisual creative works. Collectively, this approach alleviates the fear of copyright strikes against the gameplay creators while also allowing them to protect their works against potential infringers