First global piracy study for gaming industry

by Queen Mary University of London — 10 October 2022

WIPO recently commissioned the first copyright infringement and enforcement study to identify the infringing practices which are unique to the gaming industry.

As the rapidly growing industry, which has annual revenues of USD 180 billion, continues to evolve it is faced with increasing piracy challenges which are unique to video games and haven’t previously been considered within policy and legislative frameworks.

Some of the infringing instances identified include:

• Distribtution of a game by unauthorised selling and second hand sales
• Alterations and modifications of a video game like in-game user creations
• Repurposing a video game, such as user generated content which is then repurposed for outside of the game. 

Read more about the research here. 

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FURTHER READING: Video game developers get creative against piracy, Amanda Yeo, Content Cafe, March 2019

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