Game live broadcast infringement is still a pain point in the industry
Online game copyright industry is rising, copyright disputes follow
Our reporter Zhang Wei
The development of China's online copyright industry has new surprises every year.
On September 16, the Network Copyright Industry Research Base of the National Copyright Administration released the "2019 China Network Copyright Industry Development Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") at the 2020 China Network Copyright Protection Conference.
The "Report" shows that in 2019, China's online copyright industry has achieved very good results, with the entire market size exceeding 950 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29%.
Among them, the performance of the online game copyright industry is quite outstanding: the online game copyright industry as the core of the business has a market size of 230.88 billion yuan, accounting for 24.09%, of which mobile e-sports and cloud games have become new growth forces.
The important position of the online game copyright industry can also be seen from the topic setting of the 2020 China Online Copyright Protection Conference-"Comprehensive governance of copyright in new formats of the online game industry" has become one of the four major chapters.
"The brand-new business format derived from the online game industry has become a new growth point for my country's digital content industry. With high-quality content as its core competitiveness, it has continuously promoted the steady growth of my country's digital economy and built a digital cultural industry innovation ecosystem." Copyright Management of the Central Propaganda Department Zheng Liangbin, director of the bureau's office, said at the meeting.
Rapid market expansion
Industry competition is becoming increasingly fierce
As the "emerging" part of the cultural industry, online games have naturally become one of the key directions for the development of the Internet cultural industry.
Statistics from the Game Publishing Working Committee of the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association (hereinafter referred to as the Game Working Committee) show that from January to June 2020, the actual sales revenue of the domestic game market reached 139.493 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.474 billion yuan, an increase of 22.34%.
It is understood that the fast-growing game industry currently has many favorable conditions, which will make its future development hopeful all the way forward: cloud computing, 5G technology, artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies; industry related to game live broadcast, such as game live broadcast and short game video The integration has been achieved in multiple dimensions such as content, function, and users, and the user conversion rate is very strong...
Especially in the game live broadcast industry, there is quite a trend of rising all the way.
According to the "Report", the number of game live broadcast users is increasing steadily, users' willingness to pay for rewards has increased, and the scale of the industry continues to rise.
It is predicted that the game live broadcast industry will maintain a growth rate of more than 13% from 2018 to 2022. By 2022, the game live broadcast market will reach about 30 billion yuan.
The rapid expansion of the market scale is already an indisputable fact, and the user scale also continues to grow.
According to statistics, the number of users of China's game live broadcast platform reached 300 million in 2019, an increase of 15.4% over 2018.
In 2020, the epidemic will promote the continued steady growth of user scale.
At the same time, business models continue to expand.
At present, the income of live broadcast business is still the most important source of income for China's independent game live broadcast platform, accounting for more than 90%.
"With the start and rapid development of new businesses such as cloud games on various platforms and live streaming delivery in 2020, the revenue sources of game live streaming will become more diversified." said Tang Jiajun, deputy secretary general of the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association and secretary general of the Game Working Committee .
In addition to income diversification, platform content also shows diversification.
Tang Jiajun said that with the increasingly fierce competition for the copyright of the game, in addition to the game live broadcast and e-sports, various live broadcast platforms continue to derive content models such as entertainment, show, e-commerce, and accompany play to build a diversified content ecology.
The continuous emergence of new patterns and new business formats has brought the cross-border market competition involving multiple parties into a fierce stage.
"Since 2019, no new independent game live broadcast platform has been established, indicating that the industry has gradually become saturated, the overall concentration of the industry is increasing, and the competition in the second half of the game live broadcast is still very fierce." Tang Jiajun said.
Dong Zhen, research director of Analysys Interactive Entertainment Research Center, pointed out that in the future, this industry will face more multi-dimensional and diversified competition, including competition between enterprises and enterprises, users and enterprises, and users and content. Opposite competition pattern, and the core of competition is still high-quality content.
Game streaming is booming
Copyright disputes are increasing
In the process of the vigorous development of the online game live broadcast industry, copyright disputes can be described as accompanying.
In the initial stage of development, the game live broadcast industry did not have copyright awareness and mostly used spontaneously.
At this stage, disputes in game live broadcast cases are increasing. Judicial authorities have defined the legal definition of game live broadcast in relevant judicial precedents. Substantial progress has been made in the standardization of online game live broadcast copyright.
But in Tang Jiajun's view, the industry as a whole still faces the following problems:
First, there are still a lot of infringements of game live broadcast in the industry.
Although there have been judicial judgments that the copyright of game live images is protected by law, game live broadcasts should be authorized by game developers.
However, in practice, unlicensed game live broadcasts still exist in large numbers, and the problem of game live broadcast infringement is still a pain point in the industry. Game developers’ lawsuits against game live broadcast platform infringements show an increasing trend in both the number of lawsuits and the subject matter of the lawsuit.
Second, in practice, many game live broadcast copyright issues are difficult to define.
Due to the product diversity of game types and the behavior diversity of live broadcast types, which game live broadcast screens belong to the scope of works protected by law, how to define the rights attributes of game anchors after deductive creation in game live broadcasts, etc., are the current online game live broadcast copyrights. Difficulties in the protection process.
The third is the lack of national laws and regulations or industry guidelines.
Although the Higher People’s Court of Guangdong Province issued the "Guidelines for the Trial of Civil Dispute Cases Concerning Intellectual Property Rights in Online Games (Trial)" on April 13, 2020, the review of the works constituted by the live game screens, and the unfair competition involving the live or recorded game The behavior has been clearly stipulated, but this stipulation belongs to the trial guidelines issued by the local court.
From a national perspective, the entire industry is still in a spontaneous standard. There is no clear provisions in laws and regulations to protect or restrict all parties, and there is a lack of clear rules in national industry standards to guide all parties in their behavior.
Fourth, due to multiple reasons such as industry competition, there are still barriers and obstacles in game copyright authorization and cooperation.
In terms of copyright content cooperation, there are currently game manufacturers and game live broadcast platforms that have reached full-line game content authorization, but due to market monopoly and increased competition, major game developers still have very large restrictions on their game live broadcast copyrights.
At present, the main method of "spontaneous" protection is adopted. By adding restrictive clauses to the special user of the anchor in the relevant agreement signed with the user, the purpose of protecting their own rights is achieved. There are still many problems in copyright authorization and cooperation.
Obviously, how to respect copyright, protect copyright, and regulate the development of new business formats has become an urgent problem to be solved in promoting the healthy development of the game industry.
One of the most important issues is the legality of the copyright of the continuous dynamic images of games, which is of great significance to the overall copyright protection of online games.
It is worth noting that the current judicial precedents have basically agreed with the independent work attribute of the continuous dynamic picture of the game.
In April 2017, in the "Miracle MU" case, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court first identified the overall screen of an online game as a constitutive film work.
Since then, local courts have successively made judicial judgments that the continuous dynamic pictures produced by online games are recognized as movie-like works, such as the case of Netease v. Guangzhou Huaduo Network Technology Co., Ltd. for copyright infringement, the case of "Watching Pioneer" v. The short video infringement case of "Glory of the King", etc., clarified the protection orientation of game copyright.
Chen Zhongshan, assistant to the head of the third civil division of the Guangdong High Court and the head of the court office, said that the "Guidelines for Trial of Online Game Intellectual Property Civil Disputes (Trial)" issued by the Guangdong High Court in April this year clarified that online games will be run for a certain period of time. The resulting continuous dynamic picture should be protected if it meets the constitutive requirements of a work created by a method similar to filming.
The guidelines increase the protection of legal rights and interests including derivatives industry operators and game users, and regulate the order of competition in the game market through clearer trial guidelines to ensure the innovative development of the game industry.
Establish channels for dredging and resolving
Realize multi-party collaborative governance
How to properly resolve copyright disputes in the game industry and promote the healthy development of the game industry?
In Tang Jiajun’s view, industry associations should give full play to their guiding and coordinating functions, promote the formulation of national industry norms and guidelines related to copyright in the online game live broadcast industry, comprehensively popularize relevant laws and regulations, guide the legal and compliance development of various entities, and serve as various entities in the industry. Establish channels for clearing and resolving copyright disputes that occur, and promote the settlement of related disputes.
Game developers should maintain an active development and cooperation mentality. Game live broadcast can allow game products to gain more extensive attention. The rapid development of the game live broadcast industry will feed back the game industry and promote the further development of the game industry.
Therefore, game developers should maintain a more open and win-win mentality, actively explore the possibility of open authorization, and allow more live broadcast platforms to participate in the industry's premium games under the premise of taking into account social and commercial benefits. , Thereby promoting the prosperity and development of the industry.
The game live broadcast platform should establish a correct industry development concept, establish a standardized live broadcast order, continuously optimize its own compliance and wind control, and strive to set a benchmark for the development of the industry.
At the same time, the behavior management of game anchors should be strengthened, their live broadcast behaviors should be regulated, the platform's internal supervision and punishment mechanism should be established, and the ideological education and conduct training of the anchors should be carried out on a regular basis, so as to promote the frontline anchors to become the vanguard of industry self-discipline.
Game anchors should consciously raise their awareness of professional standardization, strengthen the practice of socialist core values, consciously abide by national laws, regulations, and policy requirements, actively cooperate with supervision in accordance with the law, abide by professional ethics, and firmly resist bad behavior.
"The online game live broadcast market has a broad prospect, and the industry itself must assume its social responsibilities. Under the framework of national laws and policies, we will do a good job in industry standards and self-discipline, work together to create a virtuous cyberspace, and promote the health of the entire industry. Development." Tang Jiajun said.
NetEase Game Litigation and Legal Affairs Director said that whether it is game live broadcast or game short video, they are all made with game content as the core content.
Faced with such a huge market, all parties should trace the origins, jointly seek for orderly rules for industry development, establish copyright authorization mechanisms, and promote industry development.
Zhou Gaojian, director of game rights protection of Tencent, pointed out that in the "Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft Amendment)" that has been submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for the second review, the legal basis for copyright infringement of game live broadcast has been disputed. It is fully resolved.
The second review of the draft also further improved the definition and types of works, and added relevant regulations to protect the copyright of audiovisual works.
In the future, my country's judicial system will continue to be active in the face of online game intellectual property trials.
Jiang Guangrui, a judge of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court, proposed that judicial trials should be geared to the laws of the industry, balance the interests of market participants, establish a timely protection mechanism, and focus on the protection of right holders and related interests.