Swimming in the Lanes of Rights and Copies

Swimming in the Lanes of Rights and Copies

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Outside of my apartment here in Yatap there is a special sale today. A Kia bongo truck as placed signs indicating that the merchant has somehow obtained genuine famous brand handbags that for some reason may only be sold today. His signs were apparently quite effective for there was an unusual sized crowd of about 20 shoppers hoping to grab one of these bags.

The sight made me recall a past trip to Dongdaemun market where of course you could find all sorts of fake bags from low-quality to stuff that looks the real articles. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region></st1:place> has a history has a source of these copies. However, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region> has been shaking this image of cheap copies and leaving that business to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region> and is now pressing forward to demand recognition as a place of high enforcement of copyright laws.

In fact, I was surprised to learn that when game companies announce the open beta of their games, it is not uncommon for the software publishers to get notice and have a raid performed under the sanction of the government here to check for pirated tool software at these game companies.

Beyond the issue of crude pirated software we see problems surface when game developers and publishes imitate too closely to previous works. In general the cloned games create a frustrated market tired of 3D MMORPGs that feature a red health orb and blue mana orb. In fact, I laughed out loud when I saw a bus ride by with a MMO advertisement for a game I couldn’t remember the name of, but I remember the tag line: “The Next 3D MMORPG.” Imagine if Hyundai announced the 2006 Sonata as “The next mid-sized sedan.” Or if Sony Pictures announced “The next comic-book adapted summer movie.”

An exception to this is Nexon’s KartRider which is an amazing game and even more an amazing online game. No one could deny that its roots draw deep into Mario of Nintendo, but the Nexon team really pushed the gameplay and world into the 21^st century with aggressive online play that the much more conservative Nintendo would not have reached for probably years more to come. While Nexon has received much criticism for the strong imitation of art direction and fundamental UI control - this form of inspiration I believe has merit because copyright laws were not designed to benefit only the creator but instead to create a balance between the interests of society and the private interests of the creator. All copyrighted works are designed to fall into the public domain; photographers may take photos of other artwork and create a new derivative work or a wholly new work. Nintendo could have pushed their art into online world but they did not and their failure could be argued as a failure to innovate in the interest of society, and instead Nexon created the game that needed to be made. The aspect of this that I most regret is that the Kartrider team from graphics, to game play, to programming and server stability are obviously world-class it is a shame to have their work over shadowed by these questions. Hopefully, the team and its managers will have more confidence in taking more chances and giving that team more space to create new worlds for us to enjoy.

Back to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region></st1:place>, there are a number of problems now and in the future. Chinese developers are reverse engineering Korean games, some Korean developers are selling their source code in a short-sighted manner, the Chinese government threatens to impose quotas against Korean games, and Chinese developers are creating their own clones of Korean games.

I believe that it is not efficient to base your business’ success of intellectual property laws, especially copyright. Consumers everywhere are now trained to download and burn copies of MP3s and now DVDs of movies and games. The future belongs to those who are able to create services that consumers find value in experiencing and not in products that consumers obtain. The reason is that it now much more difficult to produce a clone of a service than a clone of a product.

I also believe it is a form of folly to try to litigate against Chinese companies violating IP laws as there are tremendously strong economic incentives and forces at play driving those actions. Instead I advocate that we Korean-based developers work hard to create partnerships and even setup studios and co-develop our games to some degree inside of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>. By cooperating with the Chinese inside their market I believe we will be for more successful than spitting into the wind.

Indeed, I am in the process of developing our Chinese strategy here at GoPets and a deep cooperation is the central theme of the plan.

Bend before breaking.

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-Erik <div

Originally posted on LiveJournal