Game plagiarism can be divided into the following situations according to different plagiarism contents:
1. Pure code plagiarism, which is generally more complicated, may mainly be one of the games. The legal aspects involved may be patent infringement, infringement of trade secrets, etc. (such as old employees going out to use the company's original code to start a business). This kind of identification is more complicated and must be appraised by professionals, but once it is implemented, it is basically impossible to turn over. After all, most companies will leave their own traces in the code.
2. Gameplaying, most of which are plagiarized by ordinary players, such as DOTA and LOL, LOL and the glory of the king, etc., but the copyright law does not protect ideas, only protects expression, and pure gameplay is not protected (all over the world), so this kind of so-called "plagiarism" does not constitute plagiarism in the legal level.
3. Gameplaying is widely classified according to different factors. For example, the plagiarism of specific contents such as game screen, game character image, game background story, game equipment name introduction, game icon and game character animation effect. This kind of case is also the most tried by the courts in China at present. In recent years, with the strengthening of intellectual property protection, the amount of compensation for plagiarism litigation of well-known games has become higher and higher, repeatedly breaking records (more than 5 million), but it is still too small compared with the actual benefits obtained by plagiarists.
most games are usually sued in the name of "copyright infringement" or "unfair competition" after being copied. Among them, "infringement of copyright" can clearly define what plagiarism is.
in judging copyright infringement, substantial similarity+contact is the main criterion. The so-called "contact" is not difficult to understand, which refers to the possibility that the previous works can be contacted. After all, the game is an electronic product circulating on the Internet. In most cases, it is not too difficult to prove the order of the game.
So in most cases, the core question often falls to two points:
1. Does the plaintiff think that the copied content belongs to a "work" protected by the Copyright Law?
2. Does the work constitute a "substantial similarity". The "works" in the Copyright Law can be subdivided into nine categories, such as audio-visual works, computer software, written works and artistic works. Different types of works have different ways of judging "substantial similarity".
Legal basis:
Article 52 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China
Anyone who commits any of the following acts of infringement shall bear civil liabilities such as stopping the infringement, eliminating the influence, making an apology and compensating for losses according to the circumstances:
(1) publishing his works without the permission of the copyright owner;
(2) publishing a work created in cooperation with others as a work created by oneself without the permission of the co-author;
(3) not participating in the creation, and signing others' works for personal fame and fortune;
(4) distorting or tampering with other people's works;
(5) plagiarizing other people's works;
(6) without the permission of the copyright owner, using the work by means of exhibition or filming of audio-visual works, or using the work by means of adaptation, translation and annotation, unless otherwise provided for in this Law;
(7) where remuneration should be paid for the use of another person's work, but it has not been paid;
(8) renting out the originals or duplicates of audio-visual works, computer software and audio-visual products without the permission of the copyright owners, performers or producers of audio-visual products, except as otherwise provided by this Law;
(9) using the layout design of books and periodicals published by the publisher without the permission of the publisher;
(1) transmitting a live performance from a live broadcast or publicly, or recording a performance without the permission of the performer;
(11) other acts that infringe copyright and rights related to copyright.