IP rights and their Importance in the Creative Industries

Introduction

I'm sure by now you've probably gotten to the point in your life where you've seen some piece of media that has inspired your interest in the creative industries. Be it a movie, book, piece of art or as it has been for me since I was 10, video games. You think to yourself, how much you want to make something as good as someone else but it's going to take a lot of effort to get there. Why not take the easy option? Surely, copying the work of others is far easier than coming up with ideas yourself. However, if you were to do so, the lawyers of the people who own the content you're copying will have some words for you because you would be in breach of their Intellectual Property rights.

Intellectual Property rights or IP rights, to put it simply, are the rights that prevent others from copying the work of a company, organisation or person. These are in place to prevent others from profiting off of the work of someone else and ensures that the original creator is protected from others passing off their work as from the original creator.

In fact, according to the 'World Intellectual Property Organisation' or WIPO, the offical meaning of 'Intellectual Property' reads as:

"Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce. " - WIPO Website

Varying Types

While I have mentioned about IP rights in general, there is also so many different types of IP rights. You have Copyrights, Rights In Performance, Patents and Trademarks. Each of these types of IP rights all have differing rules as to how they work and for how long someone can hold them.

Copyright is probably the most famous IP right there is, with many companies buying and selling them, making it big in the news. Copyright is a property right which relates to a specific work be it a story, piece of art, sound recordings like songs, films or broadcasts. The creator of the work or whoever they have been hired to create it for, have first go at obtaining the copyright for their creation. With this, they are the only people allowed to copy, broadcast or publicly perform the creation.

As I said before, copyrights can be bought and sold unlike other IP rights with many high-profile copyrights being purchased recently, like Star Wars or Saints Row. If an owner wishes for someone else to be allowed to work on their copyrighted material, they can choose to grant a license to them. This allows the holder of the license to work on the things specified within the license. A good example of this would be that Lego is granted a license by Disney to create Lego sets based upon Star Wars. If Lego chose to deviate from this license, Disney would be able to sue them for breaching their license agreement. Copyright is not all-encompassing, it only protects the expression of the idea. That is to say, people can make similar works without infringing on the copyright. Disney can't go around sueing all sci-fi shows since they're not all specifically Star Wars.

Rights in Performance are pretty much exactly as they sound, they allow for performers to hold the rights for the live performance of their act. The two main things that Rights in Performance allow for is the performer to hold the rights to distributing their performance and the protection from any bootleg recordings of their performance. To put it simply, the rights holder is the only one who can share the performance be it through selling, renting or lending copies of the performance. This protects the performers from anyone trying to profit from unofficial recording of their live performance.

Patents are probably the most restrictive of all of the IP rights since they give complete control of an invention for 20 years. Obivously, patents aren't just handed out, you could cause utter bedlum if you let someone patent the idea for a wheel. In the UK, patents are given out by the UK Intellectual Property Office who decide if the invention is not an obvious idea and that it hasn't already been patented yet. Patent documents have to be filled with all the details of the invention stating all the specific parts which make it a new idea and not something others have created before. Patents are often licensed from their holders for a payment or deal between the patent holder and licensee, meaning that the patent holder profits off of the patent for up to 20 years.

Example of a patent with the original patent taken out by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch -

The final big IP right would be trademarks, I'm sure you've heard of these before or at least seen the small TM that hides in almost every logo and name from the media we consume. This little TM indicates that the word or phrase has been trademarked, meaning that it indicates that something is a brand or shows off its origin. Trademarks are often used to show that a company has registered their service or goods so that they have the rights to sell, promote or make use of a specific product. Unlike the other Intellectual Property rights, trademarks are able to be renewed as many times as needed and there is no cap to it. Trademarks are often taken out by companies to then not be used since they are used to prevent others from trademarking words or phrases similar to the official trademarks.

On the Nintendo Switch Logo, it shows the TM which denotes that the name has been trademarked -

Why Should I Care?

"OK, Mr Gameman, you've rambled on and on about what these IP rights are but why should I care?"

Believe me when I say I didn't give the IP rights until getting into learning about the gaming industry. It wasn't something that really mattered to me, companies just owned whatever and I didn't pay it much mind. However, IP rights are very important to pay attention to when getting into a creative industry such as the gaming industry. Think of them from a companies point of view, to them, rights are everything. For example, everyone knows that Nintendo makes Mario right? Well, what if someone were to create their own Mario, who swears and brutally beats up his enemies into a bloody pulp. People not knowing that this new Mario game doesn't come from Nintendo will think that Nintendo has made the series inappropriate for kids and not buy their Mario games. Without IP rights, someone could ruin the reputation of anything and lead to that company failing.

Therefore, as someone who wants to work within the gaming industry, I need to be able to not fall into the blatent copying of ideas from other developers in order to steer clear of infringing on the IP rights of others.

Stifling Creativity and Abuse

As you can expect though, something like IP rights does effect creativity a bit within the industry. Companies can patent ideas for game design and prevent others from using the idea let alone from being able to build upon the idea. One of the biggest examples of this would be Namco and their 1995 patent on the idea for minigames which play during the loading of another game until 2015. Personally, I believe a patent like this should have never been authorised because of the stifling effect it has upon creativity. Think upon how interesting companies could have made their load-screens without this patent, no more sitting looking at a little load icon or bar. Patents have their place, it makes sense that companies would want to patent their hardware ideas and designs. However, when it comes to video games themselves, they do nothing but stop other people building upon the gameplay ideas of others and stagnate the creativity of the industry as a whole.

You can read more about Namco's patent in this article - https://www.polygon.com/2015/1/13/7540047/a-secret-slice-of-loading-screen-history

IP rights are, sadly, also often used by companies to strong-arm smaller creatives within the industry to prevent competition or just to make a quick bit of cash from a suit. One of the biggest examples of this would be from Edge Games who throughout the mid 1990s till the early 2010s, owned the trademark for the singular work 'Edge' within the gaming industry. They threatened lawsuits for any game which tried to use the word 'Edge' within their names. One of the biggest examples of this would be when they took out a lawsuit against Namco for their use of the name 'Soul Edge', despite the name being quite different from the original trademark. As a result of this, Namco changed the name of the game series to 'Soulcalibur' to prevent further lawsuits from Edge. Companies who abuse their IP rights too much are often punished with them usually having their rights revoked by the bodies who give them out. Despite this though, many companies still will try to file suit against any ideas or names that to them seem too close to their own IP rights even for the littlest thing. Therefore, as someone in the game industry, you must be diligent to maintain creativity whilst avoiding IP rights disputes.

You can read more about the downfall of the owner of Edge games and how he abused the trademark he had here - https://kotaku.com/the-total-defeat-of-the-man-who-said-he-owned-the-word-5813213

Conclusion

Within the creative industries, Intellectual Property Rights serve a very important purpose and without them, many companies and franchises would not still be going on today. IP rights are imperitive for companies and creators maintaining the ability to create francises and prevent others from copying them or making their own versions of the creation. Without the IP rights, companies who attempt to produce their own copies of the creation are legally unable to and the fierce upholding of IP rights keep bigger companies from pursuing this option. However, one must be mindful of IP rights when working within the industry since companies may also try to strong-arm you away from competing with them. You need to be educated to know what you can and cannot do, steering clear of concepts that would make you infringe upon someone else's IP rights. To put it simply, IP rights are super important within the gaming industry and other creative industries as well.