Online game "bring" multiple elements of popular novels

2023-05-10

The game 'I am the Big Boss' has been sued for using elements such as characters, items, and venue names from the novel' The Husband 'in its promotion without permission. Recently, the Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court made a first instance judgment on the case of unfair competition between Shanghai Xuanting Entertainment Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xuanting Company) and a game company and game download platform. It found that the use of novel elements by the game company constituted unfair competition, and decided that it should immediately stop the infringement and compensate the economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 500000 yuan. Xuanting Company enjoys the exclusive property rights of the novel "Zuo son-in-law", as well as the rights to use novel elements to create new works, conduct commercial development and operation. The novel and its author have high popularity and have won multiple awards. The TV drama "My Husband" based on the novel has also received widespread attention. Xuanting Company has found that the game "I am the Big Boss" and its promotional messages use character elements from the novel "Zuo Xun", including several characters such as Su Tan'er, Ning Yi, and Xiao Chan. It also uses elements such as the novel's items, venue names, character relationships, and some elements from TV dramas. Among them, the element used in the game itself in the case is Taner, while the other elements appear in the promotional message. At the same time, the defendant's game company, as the copyright owner and developer of the game involved in the case, had learned about the IP authorization and linkage policy of the "son-in-law" from Xuanting before the game was launched, and set the novel "son-in-law" and the same Century egg of "son-in-law" as prizes in the lottery. The game download platform provides appointment download services for this game. Xuanting Company believes that the defendant's game company uses the novel elements that it enjoys copyright and commercial development rights and interests to constitute unfair competition, and requires the game company as a direct infringer and the game download platform as a help to the infringer to immediately stop the infringement, issue a statement to eliminate the impact and compensate for economic losses and rights protection expenses. The game company argues that there are doubts about whether the plaintiff enjoys the equity basis of the above elements, and that there are significant differences between the "I am the Big Boss" game and the novel "The Husband", which do not constitute the same or similar historical background, character setting, and storyline. They do not agree with the original request. The game download platform argues that the plaintiff did not provide evidence to prove that its platform helped infringe, and requests rejection of the lawsuit. After the court heard the case, it was found that Xuanting Company had obtained the exclusive property rights of the novel "Zuo son-in-law" and had the right to use novel elements to create works and conduct commercial development. If the defendant used novel elements beyond a certain range, it may occupy Xuanting Company's future commercial development space in corresponding fields and obtain the competitive advantage it should have enjoyed based on this. Therefore, Xuanting Company is a qualified plaintiff. At the same time, the court held that the novel elements used by the game involved in the case in the game itself and in the information publicized by various platforms include characters, objects, site names, character relationships and other elements. The use of these elements is not materialized and does not belong to the scope of the object protected by the copyright law. It should be evaluated by the Anti unfair competition Law. But this does not mean that it is absolutely prohibited for others to use the elements of the work reasonably, nor does it mean that Xuanting Company has obtained a monopoly on these elements in terms of text. Specific judgments should be made based on the overall nature of the use behavior. In this case, the user has nothing to do with the novel

Edit:Ying Ying    Responsible editor:Jia Jia

Source:rmfyb.chinacourt.org

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