When you watch sports such as soccer and basketball, you can see the fantastic play of the players. The exclamation of 'artistic' comes automatically. Can the fantastic play created by a player be protected by copyright?
According to Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the Copyright Act, a work means a creative work that expresses human thoughts or feelings. In soccer, for example, a striker plays with the goal of scoring goals to lead his team to victory.
To this end, even if the striker performs numerous movements such as trapping, dribbling, passing, shooting, and painting motions, and exhibiting his intellectual and physical abilities in the process of those movements, this is for the purpose of scoring goals, but It is difficult to see that
Recognizing sports as copyrighted works causes several side effects
In addition, it is difficult to see that a soccer player has an aggressive style, a style that avoids physical fights, a soccer team plays pressure soccer, or uses a specific formation as expressions of thought or emotion. In other words, it is difficult to view the sports game itself as a copyrighted work.
What would happen if the copyright of a sports game was recognized? The strange conclusion is that playing a game by imitation of the past would infringe copyright. Athletes have to play the game only with motions that are in the realm of sharing and new motions that they have come up with, which is not possible and actually hinders the development of the sport.
The popularity, honor, and economic rewards of athletes, especially professional sports players, are obtained when the contents of their games are widely known to the general public, including fans, and accordingly, expectations and interest in the games they will play in the future increase. Therefore, controlling access to his/her own game by exercising the copyright for the game he has played in the past may result in preventing him from gaining popularity, fame, and economic rewards.
Here is an example of a dispute over copyright in a sports game. In the past, a wireless pager called SportTrax, released by Motorola, was a device that displayed information about an ongoing US NBA game. The team playing, the change in scoring, the team in possession of the ball, whether the team has a free throw bonus, the quarters of the match, and even the time remaining in the quarter were displayed every 2-3 minutes.
In response, the NBA alleges copyright infringement against Motorola, but the US court ruled that the NBA game itself is not subject to copyright protection. The U.S. court held that, unlike movies, plays, TV shows, or operas, sports games are competitive and have no underlying script, and that unexpected events (such as mistakes or misunderstandings) occur even when prepared.
In addition, taking American football as an example, if the creator of the 'T-formation' could be protected by copyright, the sport would have declined rather than flourished. If a player who comes up with a uniquely elegant high-level move is given the copyright for the move, no other player can try it, and then the claim that he is the only player who can perform the move is meaningless. I was told that it would not be possible.
