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Mac Síthigh, Daithí --- "The game’s the thing: property, priorities and perceptions in the video games industries" [2017] ELECD 307; in Richardson, Megan; Ricketson, Sam (eds), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 344

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment

Editor(s): Richardson, Megan; Ricketson, Sam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784710781

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: The game’s the thing: property, priorities and perceptions in the video games industries

Author(s): Mac Síthigh, Daithí

Number of pages: 23

Abstract/Description:

The status of (video) games in copyright law remains the subject of debate. Whether it be long-standing issues of whether to treat games as software, audiovisual works or both, or newer issues such as the impact of casual gaming and the app market, there are recurring issues of the ‘fit’ between copyright law and games. Moreover, a range of recent decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) demonstrate the impact of the resolution of some of these theoretical issues for the balance of power between developers, manufacturers and users (players). As part of a UK-based project on games, transmedia and the law, were viewed legislation and cases (in the UK, supplemented by material from the US and Commonwealth), considered critical perspectives on the current law, met with developersand carried out a survey of gamers. In this chapter, I will outline, drawn from this evidence, three models of copyright for games: the general model, the game-specific model, and the player rights model. None of these models is ideal but they can be used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of different facets of the laws applicable in the sector, and to pick up Boyden’s important challenge (in his 2011 article ‘Games and Other Uncopyrightable Systems’) to attend to the problems of games (including video games) for broader reasons: ‘[G]ames exist at the boundary of intellectual property law.