Legal Analysis of Play-To-Earn Videogames

The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth legal analysis of the phenomenon of profitable video games, the copyright holders of which, unlike the owners of online computer games of previous generations, recognise the copyright of users in the works created or processed by them, and provide players with the opportunity to dispose of their intellectual rights to make a profit. The work employs scientific methods to analyse contentious relationships in the legal aspects of profitable video games and compares different approaches to their regulation. The fundamental legal differences in the conditions for using free and profitable video games have been identified and analysed. The paper provides the systematisation and discloses the legal nature of methods players use to generate income within network computer games. The research discovers the legal, organisational, and economic reasons and risks leading to the non-recognition of user copyrights and the imposition of a ban on their disposal by copyright holders of free video games. A mechanism has been discovered and disclosed that allowed the owners of profitable video games to eliminate intellectual and legal risks, recognise gamers’ copyrights to the works they created and launch the legal circulation of rights to them. The work analyses the model for using the blockchain infrastructure and non-fungible tokens as its elements for fixing and disposing of rights to user-generated gaming artefacts. The smart contract as the legal instrument of blockchain platforms is critically analysed. Authors made their proposals to improve the legal efficiency of a smart contract by adding a system of standard public licenses. The scientific novelty of the work lies in explaining the legal nature of the phenomenon of profitable video games and the mechanism for disposing of copyrights within them, as well as in proving the absence of identity between a profitable video game and such an object of special regulation as gambling. The practical significance of the article consists in the applicability of its results for improving the legal regulation in the context of the complication of the ecosystem, the growth of the market and the scale of the audience of online computer games.