Nova Productions Ltd v Mazooma Games Ltd, 2007 RPC 25, EWCA
Citation: Nova Productions Ltd v Mazooma Games Ltd, 2007 RPC 25, EWCA
Rule of thumb 1: Are you allowed to copy minor details in another person’s work? Yes, although, showing that minor details have been copied is a starting point to begin to prove a copyright case, if other major details can then be shown to have been copied as well.
Rule of thumb 2: Are you allowed to take the basic details of another person’s computer-game, and change it into a new game? Yes, you are allowed to take the basic details of a game and create a new one, and this is deemed by law not to be a copyright infringement.
Judgment:
The basic facts of this case were that there were ‘pool’/’snooker’ games where some basic minor details were copied and then the rest of the game changed. As the basic underlying details of the game were the same, the question was then whether adaptations created a new game or if they were the same because the underlying basic details were the same. The Court held that they were new games. The Court further held that to call this the same game would be oppressive and stop the proper development of new games in the computer game industry.
Ratio-decidendi:
‘In many cases a coincidence in the copyright work and the alleged infringement of small, unimportant, details is an indication of copying. Thus the "reverse countersink" in LB Plastics v Swish [1979] RPC 551 and the misspellings in Ibcos v Barclays proved the copying. But no-one would say that those details alone meant that a substantial part of the copyright work had been taken – they are the starting point for a finding of infringement, not the end point. Lord Scott's observations must be taken as concerned with the facts of Designers Guild itself, not as laying down any general principle. Actually that is clear from what he said, referring as he did to "the [my emphasis] two works." After all in that case it was the overall appearance of the two works which led to the inference of overall copying – an inference which the defendants failed to rebut. And the two designs were not just similar overall, one would serve as a substitute for the other. Here the judge has expressly rejected nearly all of the allegations of copying, leaving just a rump of a few ideas which were "derived from or inspired by the copyright work", albeit implemented in very different ways. And the games, being different from one another, are not competitive in the sense that one would do as a substitute for the other… I agree with Mr Carr. If protection for such general ideas as are relied on here were conferred by the law, copyright would become an instrument of oppression rather than the incentive for creation which it is intended to be. Protection would have moved to cover works merely inspired by others, to ideas themselves’. Jacobs LJ
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