Multimedia work and video game

A multimedia work is a creation combining, on a single digital medium, elements of different kinds, such as text, still or moving images, sounds and programs, whose progress the user controls through interactivity. The video game is its most important form in economic terms. The French Intellectual Property Code does not recognise this category, so that protection results from the combined application of the rules on software, on graphic, musical, literary and audiovisual works and on databases.

The qualification of the work

The central question is which regime applies to a heterogeneous whole. Legal writers have proposed attaching the video game to software, owing to the pre-eminence of the program, or to the audiovisual work, owing to its moving sequences. The Court of Cassation adopts a distributive qualification: a video game is a complex work which cannot be reduced to its software dimension alone, and each of its components is subject to the regime proper to its nature. The program falls under Articles L. 122-6 et seq. IPC, the graphics, characters, storyline and music fall under ordinary copyright law, and the structure of the database may enjoy separate protection.

Ownership of the rights

The distributive qualification has its most significant effects on ownership. For the software component, Article L. 113-9 IPC vests in the employer the economic rights in programs created by employees in the performance of their duties. For the other components, the studio holds the rights only through a written assignment from each contributor, whether graphic artist, composer or scriptwriter, complying with Article L. 131-3 IPC, or by establishing that the game is a collective work, which requires the contributions to merge into a whole conceived and disclosed under its name, without it being possible to grant each contributor a separate right in the whole. This qualification, frequently claimed by publishers, is assessed strictly by the courts, which may prefer that of work of joint authorship, with the unanimity constraints that follow from it.

Moral rights and exceptions

The moral right is adjusted for the software component only, Article L. 121-7 IPC preventing the author of the program from objecting to modifications that are not prejudicial to his or her honour or reputation and depriving him or her of the right of reconsideration. The authors of the other components retain their moral right in full, which may complicate updates, translations and ports. The exceptions likewise differ: private copying is excluded for software, which allows only a backup copy, whereas it remains available for the sound and visual elements.

Key points

Video games and multimedia works are complex works in which each component, whether program, images, sounds or text, follows its own regime of ownership, moral rights and exceptions. The studio holds the rights as of right only in the software created by its employees and must obtain written assignments of the rights in all other contributions. Those assignments should be secured from the start of development, and evidence archived for each component.

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This glossary entry is general in scope and does not constitute legal advice.

Dhenne Avocats is a patent litigation firm. Matters outside that field, such as trade marks, designs, copyright and IT contracts, are handled by practitioners the firm works with regularly, and by the firm itself when they arise in a patent dispute.

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