Opinion ID: 4556094
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Videogame

Text: Between May 2014 and July 2017, Abdin posted draft designs, video trailers, and descriptions of a science fiction script on his personal blog, YouTube, social media, and online forums, promoting his unreleased Videogame concept. None of the video or internet content published between May 2014 and September 2017 was registered for copyright. On June 28, 2018, Abdin registered a copyright for a distillation of the Videogame concept (the Distillation). 5 The Distillation is a twenty-three-page compilation of images, descriptions, and illustrations providing details of the Videogame's characters and backstory. 5 As the Videogame was never released, we base our description of it on the materials published by Abdin between May 2014 and September 2017 as well as the Distillation. 9 In general, the Videogame is a point-and-click adventure game about a civilization that existed in 20,000 B.C. and discover[ed] intergalactic travel using their latest technologies. App'x at 71. The Videogame follows a protagonist, Carter, a blonde male botanist who lives on a space station orbiting the planet Jupiter. Carter communicates with other characters and explores the space station and other planets to solve puzzles. See Suppl. App'x at 131 (Game Trailer 1). The Videogame has two possible endings and [tens] of ways to complete its puzzles, which are triggered randomly at any time of the game play. App'x at 71. In short, the Videogame is interactive and the individual playing the game (the player) can alter the story based on the player's attitude in dialogs, tasks, choices and/or random events. App'x at 71. The player is basically . . . writing the story of the game. App'x at 71. The essential elements of the possible Videogame storylines can be drawn from vignettes in the Distillation and video trailers published by Abdin online. The Videogame explores space travel and contains themes involving adventure, romance, slavery, secrecy[,] and espionage. App'x at 71. An important character in the Videogame is the giant blue tardigrade. App'x at 67. The Distillation notes that tardigrades can withstand 10 extreme temperatures between -458 F° up [] to 300 F°, and are the first known animals to survive in space. App'x at 85. The Distillation depicts Carter being absorbed into the tardigrade, becoming one with the tardigrade, and having the tardigrade's abnormal powers. App'x at 24; see also App'x at 78. With assistance from the tardigrade, Carter discovered instantaneous space travel by traveling through a wormhole -- i.e., a theoretical method of folding space and time so that [one] could connect two places in space together. App'x at 227. Using essentially the same image, the video trailers and teasers also show a blue tardigrade enveloping Carter and then moving through space. See Suppl. App'x at 135. The Distillation also provides biographical descriptions and images of some of the Videogame's characters. These biographies describe a diverse cast of characters with different physical features, races, occupations, sexual orientations, and ages. The player can control various characters and have Carter interact with these characters throughout the Videogame.