Copyrightability of game rules in the United States and China

Games are cloned, reskinned and imitated by copying the elements of preexisting video games, even when infringing on copyrighted elements, distressing both game developers and gamers by introducing homogeneous games. The vagueness of the copyrightability of game rules encourages copying because, according to the idea/expression dichotomy, game rules are generally categorized as uncopyrightable ideas. Even so, this reasoning is not the same in all courts, especially the jurisdictions for the world’s largest two video game markets – China and the US. This article investigates and compares the copyrightability status of game rules in both jurisdictions. It finds that not all game rules are the same in copyrightability, and the rules of certain complex video games are copyrightable creative work, especially when game rules are complex and are expressed specifically enough and originality is established. In these cases, copyright protection is deserved. This suggests that the application of the idea/expression dichotomy in copyright law to game rules needs to be adjusted according to the different genres of games.