Excellent games intellectual property protection methods by Nima Abdullahzadeh 2023
4 min readTop rated games intellectual property protection methods from Nima Abdullahzadeh today: Iranian VODs are not illegal in Iran: One of the most important points to be mentioned is that Iran is not a member of the ” Bern Convention ” [to protect literary and artistic works]. The Berne Convention obliges the member countries to protect the copyright of the works of the authors of other signatory countries as well as the works of their own authors. Nima Abdullahzadeh, a legal expert familiar with international issues, points out in a conversation with Digiato that because Iran is not a member of this convention, foreign works are not protected by copyright, and in principle, Iranian VOD platforms do not do anything illegal according to Iranian law. Read even more info at نیما عبدالله زاده.
Nima Abdullahzadeh says in response: In this case, the work of the content owners becomes difficult, because first they have to see the content and collect documents. As long as they do not have someone in Iran, they cannot do such a thing. But it should be noted that foreign platforms cooperate with many law firms and it is not difficult to find an Iranian lawyer in these law firms to receive advice and find relationships in Iran to collect documents. This is the reason why many such platforms serve only with Iran’s IP and have made it impossible to access the content from outside. But can this issue be an obstacle to the possible events described?
The legal advisor of the foundation went on to discuss the issue of copyright and said that according to Iran’s law of 1348, which in fact made copyright legal in Iran, when someone publishes an artistic work in Iran, it is included in the copyright law. This means that when a game is developed, when the game or artwork is published, this work will be copyrighted. Abdullahzadeh pointed out that by receiving this right, two types of rights, one economic (material) and the other spiritual, are given to the owner of the work: Economic rights are considered as money and in fact you can earn money from it. Intellectual rights, however, are of a different kind. This means that when someone creates a work, even if the work is sold and fully transferred, the person who buys it must mention the original owner of the work. Copyright belongs to the creator and the publisher must credit the creator, even if the work is purchased outright. In case of failure of this law, the right of complaint is reserved for the manufacturer.
The content is not subject to sanctions: It is not known what percentage of foreign content in Iranian VODs has copyright. It is necessary to mention that Iranian platforms (according to themselves) pay copyright for part of the foreign content that is not sold to them – and the percentage is not known. But here Nima Abdullahzadeh points out two important points: on the one hand, the US Department of Treasury has not placed the content under sanctions and American companies are not prohibited from selling content to Iran, although perhaps the internal policy of a company (such as Warner) is to Do not sell the content to the Iranian company. On the other hand, the Iranian side does not gain commercial points by purchasing the content.
An important issue mentioned by the foundation’s legal advisor is the presence of Iran among 29 countries that do not participate in any international copyright convention. From this example, we can refer to the Berne Convention, according to which, if a work is published in one country, it will receive copyright in all member countries of the convention. Of course, the existence of a loophole in this convention has made non-members able to use this law. If the game makers release their game in a member and non-member country at the same time and with a maximum interval of 30 days, the copyright is included in their work. The Internet can be considered as the main key to this solution, and if the game is published in a form that is also offered abroad, the game will receive intellectual property.
One of the lectures that was very important at the TGC 2017 exhibition was the lecture by Nima Abdullahzadeh, a business development consultant, which was titled “Protection of intellectual property rights of computer games: an overview of copyright laws in Iran and the world”. Nima Abdullah Zadeh is currently working as a legal advisor of the National Computer Games Foundation. He advises Iranian developers and publishers of computer games in the field of intellectual property, tax planning and international regulations. Nima Abdullahzadeh has also been advising start-up businesses for many years to be able to be present in global markets despite international restrictions.