By Luo Yanjie

The copyright holder of Pleasant Goat (喜羊羊), a popular Chinese cartoon figure, recently brought actions against the unauthorized use of the character in Flash games on several game websites. According to Chinese copyright law, the copyright holder must give permission to use art in a game, otherwise it will result in infringement. This is easily understood. But, if such an unauthorized game is then used on another website without the original developer’s consent, does this infringe the interests of the game developer? Today’s post will discuss this problem. In my opinion, even if the game developer used the cartoon character to create software without authorization from the copyright holder, the software still receives protection under the Copyright Law, but its protection has definite limits.