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The Lawbringer: Scope of copyrights
Welcome to the Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly look at the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a newly minted J.D. acting as your crossing guard. Greetings from the other side of graduation! The sun is shining, tons of Cataclysm spoilers await and now I don't have to arrange my WoW-ing and writing around my study schedule. Given that, it's time to get back into our examination of copyright law. Two weeks ago, we looked at what can get a copyright, namely: literary works; musical works and accompanying words; dramatic works and accompanying music; pantomimes and choreography; pictorial, graphical and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural works. But knowing what can be covered by a copyright doesn't explain what a copyright gives an author. A copyright is actually a bundle of separate rights: right to make copies right to distribute copies right to create derivative works right to perform or display right to anticircumvention of the measures taken to prevent copying moral rights, including rights of attribution and the right to avoid mutilation
LGJ: Wait, it's not a derivative?
Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: I noticed an interesting point brought up in the comments to the last LGJ: that the new NBA Jam was certainly a derivative work, so even if the trademark issue weren't a problem, the holder of the copyright to the original game could certainly bring suit for copyright infringement. Given that no one seems to know who acquired those rights in the Midway dissolution, I can see why this is brought up as an issue. However, a deeper look at the derivative works analysis suggests that EA's NBA Jam might not be a derivative at all; of course, much of this depends on the final product, which we have yet to see. The old standby statement that sequels are derivative works is, for the most part, a true one in the broad context of all copyrighted works. After all, sequels to books and movies are derivatives, or at least I cannot think of a single sequel that is not one in those media. And for the most part, game sequels are derivatives as well, but not always. And to understand the difference, you have to look at what a derivative work is, what it isn't, and how sequels are different in a book and movie context than they can be in a game context.
