Intellectual property and video games (or «l’imbroglio di Super Mario»): towards a specific legal regime for a strategic cultural industry

Abstract

In recent years, video games have become the engine of the digital economy and innovation, as well as the most thriving cultural and entertainment industry of our country, generating annually more than the turnover of both film and music industries together. However, the sector has not yet found the necessary legislative protection in their creative and authorial dimension, lacking explicit regulation, and consequently, its own regime in the current Intellectual Property Law.

This paper analyzes the legal difficulties, many of them unnecessary, that the scarcity and unspecificity of the present legal framework can bring to the creators of the so-called entertainment software, and it proposes a consistent legislative reform which includes a specific intellectual property regime for videogames (as currently happens with movies, music or book), given the growing strength, not only culturally but also economically acquired by the video game industry. An industry that Spain, as well as other countries in our immediate environment, such as France, the United Kingdom or the European Union itself, have already considered as a strategic one.