Intangible Property: Protection of Virtual Property in Electronic Games in China and US

Wang Hanyue(Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law)

Abstract

With blossoming of the electronic games, the strategy of game developer preference is that the player uses real money to buy the virtual property in the game. The purpose for the strategy which keeping the game promote and developing the game system on the platform to attract more users.

With the increasing amount of game, the main strategy is same. The chain, the End User License Agreement (EULA) which between the game developer and player is vital. EULA used to rule that the virtual property is belong to the game developer. However, for now, the virtual property has different acquisition way, “all virtual property belongs to the developer” since already unfair.

Staring from the first virtual property lawsuit in China, this paper introduces the virtual property of electronic game and legal protection in US and China. Second, discussion the reasons to protection virtual property and provide proposals for a potential legislative solution in China. At the end, this paper presents the reason that copyright law not suitable to protect the virtual property.

Keywords

Virtual property; Electronic game; User license agreement; Legislative solution; Property law; Copyright law

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26549/jfr.v4i2.3752