What is copyright and how does it pertain to video games industry?



What is copyright and how does it pertain to video games industry?

Introduction

Copyright is the possession of an intellectual property within the limits approved by a specific state's or country law.  One of the most outstanding advancement in information access is Internet, and is quickly becoming a nest of copyright exploitation. The applications of copyright are still new in the software field as compared to printed media. Copyright can protect the expression, not the ideas. Facts cannot be copyrighted; but its outcome like content related to GUI, its presentation and codes can be. Video games piracy is becoming popular in digital media. The protection is broken by several ways like copying important elements of the game source code or making its copies and selling it illegally.

Discussion

Copyright refers to rules that protect the use of the work of a creator. These stop from replication, distributing and modifying the original work. Copyright is only applied to a work that has original ideas. The idea's material use is covered under the copyright law.

Background

Copyright was invented after the beginning of the printing press. Legally, it originated in Britain but with the passage of time, it was adopted by Europe, Asia and America in late 1780s. The invention of copyright was due to the reason that literature printed legally in America, was illegally republished in international market with comparative low prices. This lead to the phenomena of making the content legal and right protected. Later on, copyright covered all the mediums of publications, printed as well as digital.

Video Game Piracy

Video game piracy started with the arrival of home computing. It was initiated from the bootleg cassettes to the present era of modern games and file sharing websites. However, there are no vital signs of decrement in it, rather it is growing stronger. The increase in torrent sites like The Pirate Bay has affected the digital media, as online sharing is much easier than ever. The hackers just make replicas of the source code, some modifications in the GUI and release it as a new game in the digital market. Another type of piracy is just buying a legal copy of a video game and illegally selling its copies in local market.

Effects of Video Game Piracy

According to Weck, Canadian and US computer gaming industry goes in $3.5 Billion loss per year due to pirated video ...