Virtual works: a player as creator but not as author?

You may have spent hours and hours building a virtual home worthy of the greatest architectural creations on gaming platforms, but if the developer decides to replicate it in the real world, the terms of use to which you agree often give him this opportunity. 

Worse, if you don’t comply with the terms of use, your house may be inaccessible or even destroyed. 

This new status of a creator who does not hold any copyright is quite innovative, surprising and contrary to all the copyright rules which have been laying down for decades the sacred principle that the author always remains the owner of his rights, unless he expressly assigns them.  

This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the virtual is supposed to be literally opposed to the real.   

However, when this virtual is structured and generates economic flows numbering in billions, the notion of reality is transformed. It is likely that this situation is not destined to last and to be accepted as easily as it is currently by the players; the law struggles to impose itself in front of the digital companies and the answer can only be international, which inevitably makes it more complex. 

It seems logical in the current state of copyright, at least in Europe, not to grant rights to a quasi-autonomous avatar or to artificial intelligence because the creation does not come from a human being.  

On the other hand, if the user uses the virtual environment proposed and generated by the developer, he or she is indeed the author in the legal sense of the term of the object that has been created and can therefore monopolize it, following the example of brands that already market their sneakers to enter Metaverse… 

There is no doubt that these questions, which have already agitated international jurisprudence, will soon be the subject of much debate in courts, and that the lines of intellectual property will be redrawn or even rethought. 

− Nathalie FAYETTE, IP Attorney and Founder of Mark & Law