TITLE:
Can Software Developers Own the Copyright to Any User-Generated Content in a Virtual World? A Comparative Analysis Perspective
AUTHORS:
Linxin Xie
KEYWORDS:
Copyright, Virtual World, EULA, User-Generated Content, Software
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.14 No.3,
September
5,
2023
ABSTRACT: The development of virtual worlds has sparked debates over the ownership of user-generated content, raising questions about whether it should belong to software developers or the users who create it. In countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, copyright laws do not explicitly define the classification of user-generated content as a type of work. Consequently, in practice, the allocation of copyright ownership often relies on End User License Agreements established between software developers and users. This article takes a comparative approach to explore how user-generated content should be classified and examines potential improvements in copyright law to address the issue of ownership. Furthermore, it delves into the question of whether user-generated content can or should be entirely attributed to software developers.