| With the development of commodity economy,merchandising of virtual characters,as an important promotional method in modern times,is slowly becoming well known to the public.In the process of virtual characters merchandising,merchants will apply virtual characters as an identity to goods or services,using consumers’ love of virtual character itself to promote their desire to buy and buy behavior,ultimately bring valuable economic benefits to merchants.The huge profit drive makes this kind of promotion method quickly be loved by merchants all over the world,but the process of obtaining authorization is not easy,on the one hand,the merchant to obtain the authorization of virtual character’s creators,on the other hand,the merchant also needs to have the corresponding production and sales qualifications,to ensure that the authorized goods or service quality qualified.There is no doubt that there are not many businesses with the above conditions at the same time,so the merchandising rights of virtual characters in economic activities are often violated,and with the development of science and technology,the way of infringement has become multitudinous,not only rights holders encounter the dilemma of rights protection,and even consumers often confused with them,the urgent need for legal protection to ensure the healthy development of the economy.At the international level,under the influence of WIPO,the consensus on the protection of the merchandising rights of virtual characters by reference to the legal system of intellectual property rights has basically been formed,but no country has explicitly established the merchandising rights of virtual characters in legislation.In our country,the protection of this right has been controversial,some scholars suggest the establishment of a new type of rights such as the merchandising right to protect it,and some oppose such practices.This dissertation basically endorses the practice of protecting the merchandising rights of virtual characters through the existing legal system of intellectual property rights.However,China’s current intellectual property legal system for the protection of merchandising rights of virtual characters is not very perfect,there are disputes in dealing with related rights and interests,and often have different judgments or non-protection in some situation.Although not yet reached the need to establish a new type of rights,but for the existing intellectual property legal system to improve the urgent need to put on the agenda.In view of this situation,the best solution at present is to combine our country’s own characteristics with the actual situation,in maintaining the original characteristics of the intellectual property legal system,avoid larger legal changes,and at the same time,learn from the feasible practices of extraterritorial,for China’s merchandising rights of virtual characters to provide a more perfect and comprehensive protection. |
