| Online game live transmission platform has become a very popular media across the nation recently thanks to the developing of the new technology and the increasing demanding for the entertainment of ordinary people.So much attention has been paid on this emerging industry as well as the sharp-nosed capital who considerate it as an area with greatest investment potential.E-sport games live transmission has accounted for a huge part of the online game transmission of the webcasting platform and attracted crazy number of fans with fascinating financial opportunity.The amazing E-sport games live transmission has also triggered so many copyright disputes which are comparatively new and complicated.The most argued questions may include: whether the program filmed during the E-sports live transmission could be regard as work.If it could be viewed as an article of work then what kind of work it will be defined.How could we define the behavior of the E-sport live transmission player and what kind of rights can they claim.How to control the increasingly serious piracy behavior and whether the E-sport game live transmission constitutes fair use.This article will study those questions upon in three chapters as following:The first chapter argues about the copyright issues referring the E-sport games live transmission.Firstly,it introduces the basic knowledge of the E-sport Games and its live transmission via webcasting platform.It also discusses the disputes of thecopyright piracy.This article would like to focus on the multiplayer online battle arena game which is the typical kind of the E-sport games.Since the E-sport game features great competitivity the player played the most important part in the progress of the live transmission.The whole live transmission progress requires great creativity of the players which is very different from the other online games,and a lot of the piracy behavior arises as lacking of legal regulation.The disputes may include whether the live transmission could be considerate a kind of piracy behavior and how to divide the right between the player and webcasting platform.To solve the disputes correctly,people have to start from the very beginning of the basic foundation of the copyright law.The solving problem itself will not only encourage the whole online game webcasting industry but also perfect the copyright law structure.Secondly,this article studies the copyright of the E-sport games.The E-sport games cannot be considered as a whole work in the China Copyright Law,it has to be seemed as a combination of multi works which may include music,picture,software and so on.Secondly,this article may argue that the program which filmed during the E-sport Game live transmission could be considerate as movie for it has some kind of originality and the player is the author of the movie and can enjoy the copyright.So,we cannot view the player as the performer of the E-sport game in the condition of the webcasting live transmission.In the end of this chapter we discuss the copyright owner in the different kind of the E-sport game live transmission,such as the personal live broadcast and the competition live broadcast.In the former kind of live broadcast,the player himself is the copyright owner,and the program filmed during the transmission could be regarded as movie.In the competition live broadcast,the copywriter owner is the organizer of the competition,the other people such as the player of the E-sport game will enjoy the right of authorship.In the second chapter,this article discusses the copyright which may refer to the behavior of the E-sport game live transmission and the piracy behavior during the live transmission.Firstly,the live transmission of E-sport game in the webcasting platform is the new kind of transmission which has not been described in the copyright law.And we can see the current copyright law that the right of broadcast,the right of communication of information on networks,broadcasting organization right are all cannot apply to the live transmission of the E-sport games.Some suggestions come out that we could expanse the right that has already been defined in the current copyright law as a response to the rapidly developing new technology.However,this chapter suggests that the pure expansion of the current copyright cannot make a clear distribution among the copyright owners and may also do harm to the structure of the copyright law.So currently when comes to the behavior of the transmission of E-sport games one can only refer to miscellaneous provisions that is the “any other rights a copyright owner is entitled to enjoy” of article 10.The only concern is that the discretion in law applying would expanse and predictability of law would be considerably lower.Secondly,then this chapter discussed the two kinds of piracy behavior in the field of E-sport game live transmission.Since the existing copyright doesn't protect webcasting,we would like to suggest the creation of the webcasting right and the webcasting organization right.Webcasting right means right to broadcast the program via internet regardless the “selected time” and the “selected sites”.By enjoying this right,the author can control the behavior the of piracy of the live transmission on webcasting platform.Webcasting organization may refer to the platform which broadcast their program via internet in selected time,such as network television,internet radio station and so on.By the creation of the webcasting organization right the webcasting program signal can also be protected.The final chapter mainly focused on the fair use of the E-sport games live transmission.The live transmission itself is one kind of a commercial application of the E-sport game.The live transmission now in China has already become an industry with great financial potential and the copyright owner of the E-sport games claims that they should have the right to grant license.Some owner even claims that nobody should have the right to live transmit their program which is filmed during the operation of the E-sport games.All of these issues come to one question: whether E-sports games live transmission constitutes fair use.The player of the E-sport gamescreated the intellectual work during the progress of the live transmission,which could be regarded as transformative use.According to the research of the economics of law,if the copyright owners do have the right to permit the live transmission it will do harm to the industry.The reasons as following: now the market of the live transmission is comparative mature,each kind of the E-sport games has its own solid fans,and many fans only follow one kind of the E-sport games.If the certain copyright owners do have the right to grant permission it can easily forbidden the platform from live transmission or force the player to do the live transmission on the appointed webcasting platform.Any action the copyright owner would take will do great harm to the live transmission industry.From the perspective of utilitarian theory,it could be beneficial to the E-sport live transmission industry and players to recognize that the live transmission constitutes fair use. |
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