Source: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law/publications/landslide/2014-15/march-april/its_how_you_play_game_why_videogame_rules_are_not_expression_protected_copyright_law/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 03:07:04+00:00

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Most—if not all—courts apply the following test in determining whether a video game infringes another’s copyright: whether two games have the same “idea” only (which means no infringement) or something more in common (possible infringement). I argue that such analysis, while necessary, is not enough. In analyzing copyright infringement of video games, courts must implement an additional analysis that gives no weight to similarities between the rules and mechanics of games—regardless of whether such elements are part of a game’s idea. This analysis requires courts to determine, at the outset, not only what constitutes the idea of a game but also what the game’s rules are—and apply a consistent and coherent definition of what game rules are in the first place.
Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act states: “In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.”1 In using the word “or,” the statute lists these exclusions—ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, or discoveries—disjunctively. Thus, each has independent force and effect. This means that neither ideas nor functional elements—such as procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation—are copyrightable.
The legislative history of § 102(b) is consistent with the understanding that neither ideas nor functional elements are copyrightable. In 1964, the register of copyrights proposed a revision to the copyright laws to define the scope of copyrightable subject matter: “Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.”2 This language exists today in § 102(a) of the Copyright Act.
The stated proposal, on its face, brought within reach computer programs, and there was concern that this would bring within the scope of copyright “functional items.”3 A new copyright bill was then introduced, clarifying that copyright would protect neither functional items nor abstract ideas. This bill kept the above language regarding the scope of copyright protection, but further included a set of exclusions: abstractions (ideas, concepts, discoveries, and principles) and more complex functional features (procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation).4 This set of exclusions is now incorporated in § 102(b).
As explained in detail in the next section, cases involving accused infringement of a video game display apply a test to determine what the abstract, unprotectable idea of the game is as opposed to the copyrightable expression of that idea. The court abstracts the copyrighted work to determine the underlying idea of the work as distinguished from its expression, and compares the protectable portion of the work to the accused work to determine infringement. If the idea of the work is indistinguishable from the expression—i.e., “merged” such that there are a limited number of ways of expressing the idea—then copyright will protect against only identical copying. This analysis is perfectly appropriate when determining the underlying uncopyrightable idea of the work. But it is inapposite when determining the uncopyrightable functionality (i.e., rules) of the game.
Accepting the district court’s finding that the Lotus developers made some expressive choices in choosing and arranging the Lotus command terms, we nonetheless hold that the expression is not copyrightable because it is part of Lotus 1-2-3’s “method of operation.” We do not think that “methods of operation” are limited to abstractions; rather they are the means by which a user operates something. . . .
The Borland court similarly refused to apply an abstraction analysis to the elements of Lotus’s copyrighted work: “We think that abstracting menu command hierarchies down to their individual word and menu levels and then filtering idea from expression at that stage . . . obscures the more fundamental question of whether a menu command hierarchy can be copyrighted at all.”14 As in Borland, the fundamental question here is not at what level of abstraction a game’s rules must be compared, but whether a game’s rules can be copyrighted at all.
When video game cases implement an idea/expression analysis only, this analysis sometimes does, but sometimes doesn’t, account for similarities in game rules and mechanics.
In Atari, Inc. v. Armenia, Ltd., one of the earliest cases to examine copyright infringement of video games, the Northern District of Illinois examined whether War of the Bugs infringed Atari’s Centipede.15 The court reached a preliminary determination of infringement in an “I-know-it-when-I-see-it analysis.” It explained: “The worms travel in the same manner. The shots were fired in the same manner. The [whole] arrangement was very similar.”16 There was no attempt to determine the uncopyrightable idea of the game, much less the uncopyrightable rules.
In Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc., Data East accused Epyx’s World Karate Champ of infringing its game, Karate Champ.25 There were 15 features in common between the two games—most of which were karate game moves.26 Applying the idea/expression dichotomy, the court held these features to be unprotectable, reasoning that they were “game procedure, common karate moves, the idea of the background scenes, a time element, a referee, computer graphics, and bonus points, [that] result[ed] from either constraints inherent in the sport of karate or computer restraints.”27 Once those similarities in function were removed, the court found no infringement.
Over the next several years, a number of courts followed suit, applying the idea/expression dichotomy to determine the uncopyrightable aspects of the games to be filtered from the similarity analysis.
Overall, the results in the video game cases are consistent with the basic proposition that the rules of a game are not copyrightable—notwithstanding that the courts often implement an idea/expression analysis. However, they often conflate a game’s rules with the idea, i.e., an abstraction, of the game—which results in many specific functional features gaining copyright protection when they should not. Again, a functional aspect such as a rule is uncopyrightable regardless of whether it’s an abstract idea or a specific implementation. But this of course begs the question: How do we define rules?
How Do We Define Uncopyrightable Game Rules?
Take, as another example, a Simpsons-themed chess set. The depiction of Marge, Homer, Bart, and the other Simpsons characters are surely copyrightable. But none of the underlying rules for chess are copyrightable, even if invented today.
The playing field is a three-by-three grid.
Two players alternate marking those squares, the first player using a mark belonging to herself and the second player using a different mark belonging to himself.
If one player places three of the same marks in a row, that player wins.
If all squares are filled without a winner, the game is a draw.
Generally, the first player’s mark is an X and the second’s is an O. But the rules would not change if the X was changed to an A, a banana, or a monkey, and if the O was changed to a B, an orange, or a giraffe. The type of mark doesn’t matter to the functioning of the game, provided that the two marks are distinguishable from each other.
When we think of the rules of the game as the limitations and affordances of the game, then some features, which may not be a part of a game’s idea, are nonetheless uncopyrightable. Let’s go back to the Tetris case. There, the court found that the shapes of the pieces (which dictate how and where the shapes fit on the board), the movement of the pieces (which dictates how to place the shapes on the board), and the size of the board (which dictates exactly where to place the shapes on the board) were copyrightable. This is wrong. These features are all limitations and affordances of the game—and they are all uncopyrightable rules. By filtering out only the uncopyrightable idea of the game, some game rules may found to be copyrightable. This is wrong. Games rules have never been copyrightable, and the idea of a game is just one uncopyrightable aspect of a work. This may be somewhat discomfiting, where the game is comprised almost exclusively of rules—such as in Tetris, but that is no excuse to find otherwise. As explained in detail above, the statutory language and legislative history supporting that language both confirm that neither abstractions nor functional features are copyrightable. Focusing on abstractions only is error. Thus and in conclusion, to determine the uncopyrightable aspects of a video game, a court must not only define the uncopyrightable idea of a game, but also its uncopyrightable rules.
1. 17 U.S.C. § 102(b).
2. See H.R. 11947, 88th Cong. (1964); S. 3008, 88th Cong. (1964).
3. Copyright Law Revision: Hearings on S. 597 Before the Subcomm. on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 90th Cong. 192–99 (1967).
4. S. 543, 91st Cong. (1969).
5. H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 57 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5670.
6. U.S. Copyright Office Factsheet FL-108: Copyright Registration of Games (Dec. 2011), http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html.
7. 86 F.2d 958, 961 (1st Cir. 1936).
8. 42 F.2d 782, 782 (S.D.N.Y. 1929); see also Landsberg v. Scrabble Crossword Game Players, Inc., 736 F.2d 485, 489 (9th Cir. 1984); Durham Indus., Inc. v. Tomy Corp., 630 F.2d 905 (2d Cir. 1980); Affiliated Hosp. Prods., Inc. v. Merdel Game Mfg. Co., 513 F.2d 1183 (2d Cir. 1975); Morrissey v. Proctor & Gamble Co., 379 F.2d 675 (1st Cir. 1967); Affiliated Enters., Inc. v. Gantz, 86 F.2d 597 (10th Cir. 1936); Hoopla Sports & Entm’t, Inc. v. Nike, Inc., 947 F. Supp. 347 (N.D. Ill. 1996); Chamberlin v. Uris Sales Corp., 56 F. Supp. 987, 988 (S.D.N.Y. 1944), aff’d, 150 F.2d 512 (2d Cir. 1945); Seltzer v. Sunbrock, 22 F. Supp. 621, 630 (S.D. Cal. 1938); Russell v. Ne. Publ’g Co., 7 F. Supp. 571 (D. Mass. 1934).
9. 49 F.3d 807, 810 (1st Cir. 1995).
11. Id. at 816 (footnote omitted).
13. Lotus Dev. Corp. v. Borland Int’l, Inc., 516 U.S. 233 (1996).
14. Borland, 49 F.3d at 815.
15. No. 81 C 6099, 1981 WL 1388 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 3, 1981).
17. 547 F. Supp. 222, 225 (D. Md. 1981). Asteroids is well known, but it’s near impossible to find a version of Meteors. It was never widely distributed despite the court’s finding of no infringement.
20. Id. at 224–25, 229.
21. 672 F.2d 607 (7th Cir. 1982).
24. Id. at 617–18 (emphasis added).
25. 862 F.2d 204 (9th Cir. 1988).
28. 400 F.3d 1007 (7th Cir. 2005).
34. 863 F. Supp. 2d 394 (D.N.J. 2012).
35. Full disclosure, this briefing was done by me, on behalf of Xio and its game, Mino.
37. Id. at 411 (emphasis added).
39. Jesper Juul, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds 58 (2005).
40. See, e.g., Oxford English Dictionary, Rule (2011) (“a regulation determining the methods or course of a game or the like”); Bruce E. Boyden, Games and Other Uncopyrightable Systems, 18 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 439, 450 (2011) (“[T]he rules of a game are sometimes thought of as instructions for playing the game, but they are not; rules do not tell players precisely what to do. Rather, they place broad constraints on what players can do and conversely define certain actions as valid within the scope of the game.”).
41. See, e.g., U.S. Copyright Registration No. VAu000362713 (Mar. 24, 1997) (“Nautically designed chess set”); U.S. Copyright Registration No. VAu000666397 (Mar. 28, 2005) (“Chess set, sculpture of Michelangelo”).
42. See generally 2 William A. Patry, Patry on Copyright § 4:20 (“Computer programs that permit the play of electronic chess games may be protected, but on a basis no different from any other computer program. The actual chess game pieces are sometimes highly creative works of sculpture and may be protected as such, as may a ‘chess set’ that consists of original chess pieces and original text sold as an ensemble.”).
Sonali D. Maitra is a partner at Durie Tangri LLP in San Francisco, California. She specializes in litigation—including IP and videogame litigation.

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