[Opinion] The character looks like "Pokémon"! Look

Opinion articles present diverse opinions and do not represent the position of "WEB3+"

Why was “Palworld” not sued for plagiarizing various game play methods?

"Palu World (hereinafter referred to as Palworld)" adopts a variety of gameplay methods, including the survival game of Ark, the monster hunting of Monster Hunter, the acquisition of Pokémon partners, the construction of Mincraft, and the squeeze of the game of life.

In addition, the design of the 3D key model of the game character "Palu" clearly shows traces of Pokémon hunting. Some are fusions of two Pokémon, while others are almost identical.

Therefore, as soon as the game was released, some people thought that "Palworld", which copied various gameplay methods, would definitely be sued by major game manufacturers. However, this is obviously a misunderstanding of the copyright law, because the gameplay of the game is a "concept" and is not within the scope of protection of the Copyright Law from the beginning.

Why is it safer to copy various games?

So when does copyright infringement occur between different games? The "content" of the game itself must be "substantially similar (vernacular: sufficiently similar)", such as images, music, art, scripts, computer programs, etc. that constitute the game.

But will individual pallu in "Palworld" constitute infringement? This is worth discussing. First of all, these paru monsters can be divided into three main categories.

The first type is Palworld’s original monsters, such as the mischievous cat in Illustrated Book 002, which does not constitute infringement at all.

Palworld's original monsters, like the mischievous cat from the illustrated book 002.

There is also the second type, which is the very similar Pokédex 093 Unsea Deer. It is very similar to Gopalon in Pokémon. The color scheme, monster appearance, and accessories are all very similar. I think the Nintendo Legal Department should investigate this issue. Only Palu performed the Dharma on the spot.

Deer in the sea of ??clouds.

There is also the third most controversial type, which is the AI ??fusion type, like the Blue Sea Dragon in Pokédex 082. This is obviously the fusion of Pokémon's Harkron and Suicune. You can see the obvious shape of Suicune's head and surroundings. White stripes, plus the standard orb on the tail of the Hakron.

Aquadragon is obviously a fusion of Pokémon's Harkron and Suicune.

In the past, we can say that the modified work is very different from the original reference work, and the creator's new ideas have been added, so there is room for "fair use".

In the AI ??era, should the threshold for "fair use" be raised?

However, nowadays, with the proliferation of AI fusion pictures, such works can be easily completed by AI with one click. In the past, it may have taken the painter to spend time and energy to complete, but now, just adjust the parameters of the AI ??drawing interface. That's it. Against this background, should the threshold for establishing "fair use" be raised?

In fact, I think Nintendo's legal department should file an infringement lawsuit against these fusion parlu, which would be very meaningful for the standard of "fair use" judgment.

In the past, when discussing fair use, the only points to consider were "the purpose of the allegedly infringed work, the nature of the infringed work itself, the similarity between the works (qualitative and quantitative analysis) and the market impact." However, now we should also consider the difficulty of generating it. Yidu, if the allegedly infringing work is simply a simple one-click image fusion (like the Bihailong in Illustrated Book 082), then the application of "fair use" should be limited.

The generation of AI greatly reduces the difficulty of modification. Especially in an era when personal computers can perform AI calculations on their own, there will definitely be more AI modifications into popular IPs in the future.

From the fact that "Palworld" completed a high-level, high-level art design in a very short period of time, to the fact that a specific Pallu has the shadow of the fusion of specific Pokémon characters, it can be reasonably inferred that AI can save a lot of money for "Palworld" R&D costs. How the works modified using AI will develop in the future will be highly connected with the selection of practical "fair use" standards.

Opinion articles present diverse opinions and do not represent the position of "WEB3+"

Review editor: Gao Jingyuan

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