Research On Copyrightability Of Game Rules

Currently,there are two kinds of typical misunderstandings held by those who believe that game rules are copyrightable.One comes from the misunderstanding on the source of originality,the other comes from the misunderstanding on the source of beauty.As for the former type,some opinions mistake the originality of expression as the originality of game rules,thus mistaking the originality of expressions in games as the originality of game rules.Some opinions mistake feeling towards functions as feelings towards expressions so that they take functional design into account in the decision of substantial similarity.As for the latter,some opinions believe game products contain the beauty of game rules,which is another misunderstanding.Some opinions mistake game rules as an analogy of movie plots because they think those two are parallel in beauty,thus mistake game rules as expressions.The reasons are listed as follow why game rules are not copyrightable.Firstly,the nature of game rules constitute ideas.International treaties and national laws of some main countries tend to ascribe rules to idea.Game rules are not special enough to be differentiated from regular rules,which make game rules ideas.Game rules are built entirely to meet the demands of game play,which makes them functional design.Hardly expressed through frames,game rules are almost imperceptible from frames.Secondly,game rules receive no protection through copyright mode.Game rules are initially expressed in writings of game script,using the rules described in a game script to develop a new game are not infringement,because copyright do not control such behavior.Game rule shall be protected by competition law.Thirdly,the amendment of the Copyright Law on categories of work do not change the decision of the copyrightability of game rules.Under the law where categories of work are limited,game rules cannot be classified into any category of work nor can they be recognized as expression of any category of work.Under the law where categories of work can be created by courts,game rules are still excluded from copyright protection based on basic principles of copyright law.The methods of deciding the nature of game rules include abstracting and restoring as well as the apply of an a intrinsic and an extrinsic test.Abstracting and restoring of game rule require the plaintiff to abstract the rules he asked for protection from the game and restore them into writings so that they can be easier to observe and to compare.An intrinsic and an extrinsic test allow courts to decide substantial similarity both from a subjective perspective and an objective perspective.This article suggest that an extrinsic test be applied first to delimit what are copyrightable,after that,an intrinsic test shall be applied to decide substantial similarity eventually.