An Analysis on Video Game Creators’ Rights through Literary and Artistic Property Law in Iran and United States of America

Video game has one of the biggest markets compared to other literary and artistic works. Therefore, it’s crucial to take effective steps for its protection. Of course, the intellectual property law, especially the literary and artistic property law plays the main role in protecting it. In this research we aim to introduce video game and its characteristics as an intellectual phenomenon; In the meantime, we try to find the best classification in order to protect video games through literary and artistic property law in Iran and the United States. This article is a desk research written using Descriptive and Analytical method with library and online resources. Despite video games not being directly mentioned in Iran and the United States statutes, video games are protected as audiovisual works in the United States; however, in Iran, classification of video games is a matter of debate. The result of this research is that in Iran, the clause 12 of article 2 of the Authors, Composers and Artists Rights Protection Act of 1970 can be implemented to protect video games as combinatorial works; also, video games can be protected as software using the Protection of Creators of Computer Software Rights Act of 2000. In any case, distributive classification of video games can be used as a supplementary option. In the end, we suggest the judiciary system of Iran to publish video game cases in order to form case law; Meanwhile, Intellectual Property statutes such as both of the mentioned acts, need to be revised.