Research On The Copyrightability Of User-Generated Content In Video Games

In the traditional game development and operation process,game developers are responsible for producing the content,while users are responsible for consuming the content.There is a " one-way output" relationship between the two parties.But with the continuous development of video games,the role of users in content production has become more and more critical.At this stage,users can use in-game creation tools to generate some personalized content that takes the form of graphics,sound,etc.,and contains a certain amount of creative work.Part of the content also reflects the user’s unique choice,arrangement,and design,reflecting the user’s distinctive personality characteristics,and has reached the height of the work in appearance.When a dispute arises around this part of the content,relevant stakeholders usually seek copyright protection first.However,as works protected by copyright,video games have already carried the preset design and idea of game developers,so they put forward more stringent requirements on the determination of copyrightability of the user-generated content.In addition,there is also a view in academic circles that the content generated by the "interactive" operation of players is limited by the preset expression range of the game,and cannot meet the requirements of originality,which makes the content face the dilemma of copyright identification.If the user-generated content in video games cannot constitute work,there is no doubt that the product of the game’s evolution will fall into a legal vacuum.In this context,this paper attempts to demonstrate that user-generated content can constitute copyright work in theory,and design the judgment criteria for the copyrightability of usergenerated content in video games from the practical level,so as to provide a meaningful reference for dispute handling in practice.In addition to the introduction,this paper is divided into four parts.The first part is an overview of user-generated content in video games,briefly introducing the definition of usergenerated content in video games,its characteristics,forms of expression in different types of games,and its relationship with other similar concepts.The second part combines Chinese judicial practice and collates relevant cases involving user-generated content in video games.Meanwhile,some problems in the process of determining the copyrightability of usergenerated content in video games are summarized.The third part is the analysis of the copyrightability of the user-generated content in video games.This part first explains the value of copyright protection for this kind of content,then responds to the controversy of the second part regarding the attributes of works from the theoretical and practical experiences of foreign countries,the nature of "interactive" actions of game users,and the elements of works.For further demonstration,this section also analyzes several types of works that can be constituted by user-generated content in video games,and their originality criteria.The fourth part is a consideration of the criteria for judging the copyrightability of usergenerated content in video games,proposing that the relevant user-generated content of games should meet the conditions of " forming new expressions outside the pre-determined scope of expressions of games," "The game has full room for creativity," "users have creative intent," "separability of utility and artistry," etc.,and be tested by originality analysis to become works protected by Chinese Copyright Law.