Particular Features and Problems of Legal Regulation of Intellectual Property in the Video Game Industry

The development of video games, as a relatively young industry, encounters a variety of legal approaches and opinions on many contentious issues. This study analyzes the legal regime of video games, their essence, and composition, as well as the specificities of regulating and protecting intellectual property rights in games. A video game includes elements such as program code, game engine, game plot, mechanics, characters, musical accompaniment, and other components. Games are created by a team of specialists, and their components are divided into audiovisual elements and computer code. Audiovisual elements may include music, artwork, video inserts, and texts, each of which can be a subject of copyright if it meets the criteria of originality. The study finds that a work is considered original if it is created through the author's creative effort and expresses their freedom in the choice of idea and its embodiment. It is important to note that copyright applies only to the objective expression of the program, allowing for the creation of similar programs with different textual expressions. Patent law can also be an effective way to protect intellectual property in video games. Video games are classified as multimedia products, encompassing numerous rights to various elements and to the game as a whole. International practice regards games as audiovisual works or computer programs, but these approaches do not account for the interactivity and diversity of elements. The complex object regime simplifies the circulation of games in civil transactions by consolidating rights with the producer. Development participants, including game designers, artists, programmers, and other specialists, may hold copyrights depending on the extent of their creative contribution. These rights can be transferred to the producer by agreem