Study On Game Rule's Copyright Issues

The end of "Taiji Panda" v."Huaqiangu" once again triggered discussions on the copyright attributes and copyright protection paths of the game rules in the academic and judicial practice circles.Unfortunately the existing research in China only focused on the different between "abstract" and "concrete" on the two layers of thought expression and fails to deeply discuss the copyright attributes of the game rules.This paper mainly analyzes and discusses the cases involving game rules in China and the United States.This paper attempts to clarify the influence of different types of game rules and take ways to correspondingly protection.This paper first discuss the concept of game system and the characteristics of game activity.We conclude that the game system consists of three important parts: players,rules and material.On this basis,the definition of the game rules is determined as the limitation and evaluation for player's action in the game.And then pointing out the four characteristics of the game rules are certainty,functionality,artistry and expressiveness.Then the article discusses the content of the game rules that are not protected by copyright law under the two conditions of "abstract thought" and "functional element".It analyzes the influence of different abstraction levels and the principle of merger the expression of game rules,and summarizes that numerical operations,human-computer interaction and business methods belong to functional rule.It make the point that the application of the "two-step test method of conceptual separability" and the "alternative design standard" distinction in the artistic extraction of game rules is proposed.Finally,the article analyses the game rules which can satisfy the protection conditions of originality and duplication in the copyright law of our country.The article analyses the reasons why the game rules embodying story,role,special evaluation and environmental theme can constitute the expression.At last the paper discusses the game rules that can be protected according to software,literature works and film.