| In recent years,China’s game industry has developed rapidly and its scale has been expanding.However,the legislation of online game protection is not perfect,especially as a core part of the game rules,not due attention and protection.Due to the lack of protection of game rules,copycats do not need to worry about assuming legal liability and create a large number of copycat games for profit.It not only severely hit the enthusiasm of game designers to innovate,but also destroyed the competition order of the game market and hindered the progress of the game industry.Therefore,it is necessary for the copyright law to strengthen the protection of game rules,curb game plagiarism,and realize the healthy development of the game industry.With the continuous improvement of game production level and the increasing complexity and specificity of game design,game rules,as the core of game design,are the intellectual achievements brought together by the efforts of many creators,and should have the possibility of legal protection.However,there are still many deficiencies in the protection of game rules by theory and practice at present because of the deep relationship between game rules and thoughts.Theoretically,there are great differences on whether game rules are copyrightable or not,and because of the ambiguity of the dichotomy principle of thought and expression in the field of copyright,it is difficult to divide the thought and expression part of game rules correctly in practice.In addition,the wide application of the merger principle and the necessary scene principle further limits the scope that game rules can protect.However,in judicial practice,both the split protection mode and the direct protection mode identified as audio-visual works have their shortcomings,and it is difficult to effectively protect the rules of the game.At the same time,there are different judgment methods and subjective judgment in the process of substantive similarity determination.Therefore,it is necessary to perfect the copyright law protection of game rules.First of all,the copyright of the rules of the game must be affirmed.The rules of the game can constitute expression and belong to the object protected by copyright law.Secondly,we correctly understand the ideas and expressions in game rules,use abstract generalization method to divide the boundaries of ideas and expressions dichotomy,and define the judgment factors of effective expression,so as to limit the excessive application of the merger principle and the necessary scene principle.Furthermore,draw lessons from foreign experience of overall protection,establish the overall protection mode of online games,in order to achieve the purpose of protecting the rules of online games.Finally,in terms of the selection of substantive similarity identification method,explore the substantive similarity identification method in line with China’s judicial practice,and make it clear through legislation or judicial interpretation,so as to form a unified applicable method.At the same time,relevant supporting systems should be improved to assist judges to deal with online game cases more efficiently and professionally. |
