游戏地图作品属性的中国法实践

Chinese Judicial Experience in the Attributes of Video-Game Maps

随着游戏产业的迅猛发展,有关电子游戏的纠纷和诉讼也不断涌现,这些司法实践,使得游戏中最重要的元素之一——游戏地图的作品属性问题凸显了出来。游戏地图作品属性的讨论主要集中在以下两个问题上:其一,游戏地图是否可以构成著作权法意义上的作品;其二,在第一个问题成立的前提下,游戏地图应归入何种类型作品。在没有明确立法指引的前提下,中国的司法实践对这两个问题经过不断的探索,逐渐积累了宝贵的经验。本文试图对有关游戏地图作品属性的判例进行整理和回顾,总结出对上述两个问题的回答,以期对著作权法律制度的完善有所裨益。

With the rapid development of the game industry,disputes and lawsuits on the video games are constantly emerging in China.These judicial practices make the problem on the attributes of video-game maps,one of the most important elements in the video games,become very apparent.Discussions on the attributes of video-game maps mainly focus on the following two questions:(1)Whether video-game maps can be the works defined in the copyright law or not?(2)If the answer is yes in the first question,what type of the works shall the video-game maps belong to?Under the premise that there are no explicit legislative guidelines,Chinese judicial practices have gradually accumulated valuable experience via continuous exploration on the above two questions.This paper attempts to collect and review the cases on the attributes of game maps,and summarize the answer of the above two questions,hoping to improve the legal system of copyright.