Game Mechanics and Narratives and How Copyright Works For Both

Depending on where you live, most jurisdictions’ copyright acts protect most kinds of content found within games, including source code, graphical assets and 3D models, and soundtracks and other audio assets. This also factors if the game is narrative driven, or if it’s just a generic game without much of a story.

Most computer game source code is made up of human-readable text, as well as numbers and punctuation. The United States Copyright Office declares computer programs as literary works. But what can the Copyright Act actually protect? What does it mean for you as the copyright holder?

In order for a video game to be protected under copyright law, your game must meet a few standards:

• The game must be created by a human being. If you include material created by another person in your game, the material remains the property of that person and you do not own it.
• The game must be sufficiently creative. What matters is the degree of creativity and not its merit. Even words that you create and are used by your game’s characters, as well as titles and slogans are not sufficiently creative to be protected by the Copyright Act. You can, however, file trademarks for those words, titles, or slogans with your regional trademark or patent office.
• Any typefaces, formats, and layouts of your game’s graphical user interface or heads-up display also lack necessary creativity.
• You must affix the game in a tangible medium, such as a ROM file or physical cartridges and discs.

Copyrights do not protect ideas for mechanics or the common themes or plots found in particular genres. They only protect your creative expression embodied in your game. Game mechanics, however, can still be patented. For example, two solo developers starting with the same idea can create different games with similar mechanics and they both can be copyright-protected works. You might expect a first-person shooter set in a Wild West environment or a first-person adventure game revolving around a crime solving detective to be projected in first-person view.

Generally, most countries’ Copyright Acts consider the author to be the person or persons who created the game, except if it is declared a work made for hire, where the employer or commissioning party, and not the individual, is the legal author.

The author of the game they created is the copyright owner unless there is a written transfer of ownership. Owners have several exclusive rights, such as reproducing or distributing copies of the game, make derivatives, publicly display or perform, and authorize others to do these things. Not all uses require permission, as most countries’ copyright acts have limitations and exceptions that can allow a person to legally use a copyrighted work without needing to seek permission.

Although not mandatory, registering your game with the United States Copyright Office grants important benefits, such as creating a public record of your ownership and letting you bring a copyright infringement case in federal court and seek certain remedies. To apply for registration, you need to submit an application, a filing fee, and a copy of your game as a deposit.