Home » Script piracy breeds the legal problems behind the popularity of script killing

Script piracy breeds the legal problems behind the popularity of script killing

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The problem of plagiarism and piracy is rampant, and copyright protection needs to be strengthened urgentlyThe legal issues behind the popularity of script killing

Quietly lifted the white cloth covering his body, Yang Yang carefully observed everything in front of him. The white and green walls and the infusion stand placed in the corner made him realize that this was a ward, and the bed beside him was empty, but The bedding was messy, and it was obvious that someone was “dragged” from the bed. He must work with his partner to find out the “true culprit”…

Looking for clues, pursuing the truth, and restoring a “murder case” that does not exist in reality, this is the game that has become popular in recent years-script kill.

Script killing first originated in foreign countries. It is a kind of reasoning around the plot and clue cards by allowing the player to play the role in the script, and restore the relationship between the characters in the plot through interactive communication, discussion, and exchange of clues, and finally jointly reveal the truth behind it. Social game.

Affected by some domestic variety shows, and the suspenseful plot evolution of script killing can diverge thinking and stimulate people’s desire to perform, more and more young people have become loyal fans of script killing, and script killing has also begun to shift from online games. Offline stores.

However, behind the craze of scripts, the core “scripts” are facing legal problems such as plagiarism and even piracy, which are also worthy of attention.

Script kills script piracy breeds

At the beginning of this year, Wenliang completely transformed the board game shop that he had been in business for five years into an offline script killing store. He found that the once popular Three Kingdoms game, UNO and other card board games are now gradually declining, and the script killing momentum is on the rise. Facts have proved that his choice is right. In the past six months, his shop has become famous in the circle.

In the past two years, more and more people have devoted themselves to the script killing market like Wenliang. According to iiMedia Consulting’s data, the scale of China’s script-killing market has exceeded 10 billion yuan in 2019, and it will increase to 11.74 billion yuan in 2020. According to Meituan data, as of the end of 2020, there have been more than 30,000 script-killing stores nationwide, an increase of 18,000 from 2019.

Wenliang introduced that script killing is generally divided into two types of gameplay, pure script and immersive. The pure script promotes the game based on the content of the script; the immersive type uses the environment, atmosphere, costumes, etc. to create scenes similar to the script content, allowing players to have more empathy.

At the beginning of the article, what Yang Yang played was an immersive script kill, and the effect was good, but the average price per person was 300 yuan per person, and the average script kill was also about 100 yuan per person.

The price is not cheap, and customers must pursue good results, so no matter what kind of gameplay, the script is the “last principle”.

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“Scripts are the core competitiveness of script killing. In order to attract players, stores need to buy scripts in large quantities.” Wenliang said that under normal circumstances, stores will buy scripts through regular script killing exhibitions. You can also go to “Little Black Detective” to “buy” scripts. For purchase on special script trading platforms such as “books”, the price of ordinary “boxed books” is around 500 yuan; if it is a “city limited version” (usually only 3 scripts in a city can be authorized to use scripts), the price will be Reached thousands of yuan; the price of an “exclusive book” authorized for only one store in a city can reach more than 10,000 yuan.

At present, in order to save costs, many stores will choose to directly purchase pirated scripts.

After the reporter entered the keyword “script kills script” on an e-commerce platform, the price range of the product appeared ranged from a few yuan to a few hundred yuan. Those shops with a price tag of a few yuan sold “copy”.

The reporter contacted a store with a monthly sales volume of more than 6000+ marked “We have everything on the whole network” and “guaranteed real-time updates”. The clerk bluntly stated that the scripts sold in the store are all electronic scripts that have been circulated on the market. There are even “city-limited editions”. You can print them after purchase. The average price of each script is only a few cents.

When he first set foot in the script killing market, Wenliang was also recommended by his “predecessors” as “copy”, because it is much cheaper than buying genuine scripts. At least half of the shops on the market have used such pirated scripts.

“This will form a vicious circle.” Wenliang said that the feature of script killing is one-time. Players have played pirated scripts. Even if the clues and props are not as good as the original ones, they will not be played again because they have been “spoiled”. Those shops that purchase genuine scripts at high prices are hindered in their operations, and even end up choosing pirated scripts.

Should raise awareness of copyright protection

“The script of the script killing is protected by law.” Huang Ji, a lecturer at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, introduced to a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily that the revised copyright law that came into effect on June 1 revised the definition of “work” and included its scope of protection. It is further expanded to stipulate that a work refers to an intellectual achievement that is original and can be expressed in a certain form in the fields of literature, art, and science, and a specific list is made. The script belongs to the category of literary works and is protected by law.

For unauthorized copying and selling of piracy, it may infringe the rights of distribution and copying in the author’s copyright. The copyright owner can request the infringer to stop continuing the infringement and compensate for the loss; for profit-making purposes, infringement of the copyright of others in a large amount, he can also be investigated for criminal responsibility, sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment or criminal detention, and fined.

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But Wen Liang told reporters that although the piracy problem is serious in the circle, there are few rights defenders. In addition to being afraid of trouble, most of the scripts produced by the current studios do not have a version number, and there is not enough confidence in protecting rights.

“Almost every city has a genuine store alliance, which supervises whether each store uses genuine scripts. Once pirated editions are found, they will adopt the method of in-circle exposure and expose store information on industry platforms to resist.” But Wenliang said, because many use pirated scripts The price of the store is very low, and players don’t care whether the scripts are pirated or not, which makes the sales of genuine copies of scripts with a large amount of copying bleak.

In this regard, Huang Ji pointed out that Article 2 of my country’s Copyright Law stipulates that the works of Chinese citizens, legal persons or unincorporated organizations, whether published or not, enjoy the principle of automatic copyright protection in accordance with this law. Therefore, failure to obtain a version number does not affect the acquisition of copyright. , When encountering piracy, you should actively protect your rights.

On March 29, the China Culture and Entertainment Industry Association established an immersive screenplay entertainment professional committee in Tianjin, which was called “the industry’s first official association” by the industry.

According to Liu Junhai, a professor at Renmin University of China Law School, the establishment of the official association will promote the further standardized development of the script killing market in terms of copyright protection.

“The creators of the script killing script should raise their awareness of copyright protection and use legal weapons to protect their rights after collecting evidence.” Liu Junhai believes that in response to the proliferation of piracy, the official association should also promote the industry as soon as possible to establish suitable script content in the field of script killing to apply for copyright protection. Channels or systems to facilitate legal protection of the rights and interests of creators.

Huang Ji pointed out that the timely handling of copyright registration by the script copyright owner can provide many conveniences for subsequent right certification and protection. Based on the operating rules of script killing, if it is difficult to seek copyright licenses one by one, he suggested that the role of industry associations should be used to facilitate the docking and transactions between store owners and copyright owners.

Plagiarism “core tricks” or illegal

Nowadays, stores with a little bit of “strength” will create their own scripts and sell them. After all, the scripts are hot, and the stores are competing to buy, and the profit is much higher than that of simply operating a store.

The creation of a large number of scripts has brought another problem-serious script homogeneity caused by plagiarism.

Previously, a certain original script with the theme of a secret room was copied by players with a large number of plot ideas and copied the plot of “Detective Conan”, which caused players who have watched animation to completely lose the reasoning process; domestic reasoning writer Shi Chen also named a certain script on Weibo. Copy the secret room murder trick from his novel “Clown in the Secret Chamber”.

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Wen Liang revealed that plagiarism of scripts in the circle is not uncommon, and some even the covers of the scripts are extremely similar. Because there is no standard for what is “plagiarism” and what is “borrowing” in the circle, Wen Liang is also afraid of “stepping on thunder” when creating scripts with friends. In this regard, Huang Ji pointed out that the principle of protecting works in my country’s copyright law is to protect the form of expression of the work and not to protect the content of ideas. This is for not monopolizing ideas. For example, “Romeo and Juliet” and “Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai” are both tragic stories depicting two young people pursuing love. They have similar ideas, but they cannot be regarded as plagiarism.

As far as the content of the script is concerned, Huang Ji believes that if the two scripts have the same theme, or some of the ideas in them are somewhat similar, it is okay; but if the specific plot trend and even the dialogue of the script are similar to the other script , Just changing the protagonist’s gender, name, etc., is suspected of plagiarism.

Huang Ji said that in judicial practice, the identification of plagiarism is more complicated, and some acts are indeed difficult to be identified as plagiarism or plagiarism in the sense of copyright law. However, script writers can also defend their rights through the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

Huang Ji pointed out that Article 2 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates that in production and business activities, operators should follow the principles of voluntariness, equality, fairness, and integrity, and abide by laws and business ethics. Acts of unfair competition refer to the conduct of business operators that violate the provisions of this Law in their production and business activities, disrupt the order of market competition, and harm the lawful rights and interests of other business operators or consumers.

This means that the applicable condition of this clause is that the act violates the principle of good faith and fairness and harms the legitimate rights and interests of other operators. For example, “core tricks” are the core of the value of script killing scripts. Complete application of the core tricks of other scripts will affect the value and sales of the scripts being applied, and damage the legitimate rights and interests of creators. Therefore, it may be suspected of violating the anti-unfair competition law. .

Regarding the act of “cottage” cover, Huang Ji reminded that Article 6 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates that unauthorized use of the same or similar marks as the name, packaging, decoration, etc. of goods that have a certain influence on others is an act of confusion and constitutes non-compliance. Fair competition behavior.

(Reporter Zhao Chenxi)


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