The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
***
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Very good morning and very good afternoon and very good evening depending on where you are connecting and very good morning here still to all to who gathered to hear all beautiful Oslo and welcome to our event where we will explore IP and resolving disputes in esport. I'm from World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, and I will have the pleasure of being your moderator for the next 55 minutes or so. For those who don't know WIPO is the United Nations agency that serves the world's innovators and creators and ensuring their ideas travel safely the mores and improve lives everywhere.
And we are on the forefront of cutting edge IP issues and our data and IP information guide decision makers and our projects and initiatives and our projects and technical assistance ensure that IP benefits everyone everywhere.
This includes of course the video game developers and stakeholders developed in esports from players to tournament organizers and everyone in between. I will have the pleasure to moderate this event with Alexia who is joining us online. Alexia, for a moment, over to you.
>> ALEXIA GKORITSA: Thank you very much, Ryszard. And good morning, everyone. It's great to be with you from Geneva and join you online. I'm Alexia Gkoritsa from the whiteboard mediation centre or AMC for short and it's a pleasure to join you all today.
so I will say more about this later but the just here the AMC the WIPO centre for resolving the IP and tech related disputes and. This includes more and cases in the esport space. I'm really happy to moderate this session with Ryszard today. And I look forward to serving more shortly how resolution tools can support growth in the industry. And looking forward to a great discussion and back to you, Ryszard.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thanks, Alexia. A quick overview of my side of what you will hear today. First the session will be divided into three parts. First we will have a discussion with Sergi and Daniel joining us onsite on the importance of IP in esport. And second we'll connect with Rafael to learn about managing IP and esports and an overview from that. And finally we'll hear back from Alexia who will tell us about preparing and resolving disputes. You will have the chance to ask questions after our discussion with Sergi and Daniel here onsite.
And at the end you will have the opportunity to ask your questions. Let me just start by underlying perhaps one thing. And I love doing it. That IP is at the heart of each video game. And every video game is basically a multiverse of IP. From the music and voice acting to branding and marketing from the code of the software to the design of the characters from storytelling and innovative game play that enables the experience and this is all by IP and by copyrights and patents and many more. I mentioned video games and our topic for today focuses on esports and this opens another huge and very important dimension on intellectual property.
We have with us two excellent ‑‑ we have with us two excellent panelists today. Who will talk ‑‑ who could probably talk for hours and hours about these issues but we don't have that much time. And let me quickly introduce them. But is Sergi Mesonero at head of video games Europe and head of the video game industry and he was formerly the found other of the Yugos international, sorry for my Spanish it's not there
>> It's fine.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: The biggest esport market in the in the Spanish market. And Daniel on the other hand is a IP lawyer with over 20 years of experience until end of 23 he served as the head of IP at FIFA overseeing all IP matters including protection matters with the FITFA tournaments and he's a co‑chair on the 25 presidential task force and leaves Abion Switzerland office as a brand manager and protecting the company's business.
Great to have you here Sergi and Daniel for joining us and thank you for joining. And we'll start with Sergi and kick you have off with the endless question. How valuable is the IP in the esport ecosystem?
>> SERGI MESONERO: Well I'm glad you asked me that question (Laughter). Well you basically mentioned it. Esport are based from the public use and communication of a work that's protected by intellectual property. So the video games themselves. That's the base of esport. The use of a video game. So you can imagine that intellectual property it's the way, first, to ensure that esport happen because video games happen.
The creators of the intellectual property need control over the intel core property to ensure they can do a series of things first. Recoup the investment that they make into those products. Making video games and even more video games that are of a service, such as these big multiplayer video games used in sports competitions. It's as you can imagine not only expensive to produce but also extremely expensive to keep ongoing, to maintain.
So through intellectual property rights, the creators are able to recoup the financial investment. But it goes further than that. Through IP right they also control the way their products are used in the esport competitions. So to ensure that the games are ‑‑ are presented in a way that does not conflict with the values, does not conflict with other objectives.
Okay. That the creation is respected. This is also another very important matter. But I will go even further and this is something that's not super well understood of the sector. But in contrast with sport where the rules of a sport are owned by no one, they are a collective creation. So there's no intellectual property over the rules of any sport.
The case is that's not true for the esport, for the most part. The rule of esports for the most part are part of the intellectual property. And I will put up an example that I hope illustrates in an easy way. In the case of, I don't know, FIFA, for example, or in the case of football the national federations will follow international rules to establish the size of a football field. And what characteristics it will have. And not the biggest (?) on football but the size and the where the marks should be and the goal posts and so on in the case of esports the playing field it's an artistic creation, the map where the players are competing.
It's not just ‑‑ it has a double reality at first a program a software that is protected by intellectual property. And then as well and graphic creation that so the video game developer the publisher will decide how the size of it how it looks and that's part of a graphic design. So you can imagine that through IP you also control the rules of the game, which is a very specific thing. So IP is very important.
For publishers, for developers and for video game companies but as well for the other stakeholders and tournament organizers and the team organization and the players, which of course on one hand they have to respect the IP of the creators and on the other hand they have to create their own IP their own brands and their own content, which that alignment with the intellectual property of the video game creates sometimes can bring a series of tensions. But for the most part it's bringing the esport sector forward, it's moving it forward, IP.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thanks and that's a good segue for me to move to the next slide, which gives a good overview, although simplified in many ways because it's much more complex but it's a good first overview of the whole ecosystem and how IP can play its part.
So Daniel, could you give us this overview of the different stakeholders that can own IP in esports?
>> DANIEL ZOHNY: Sure, and thank you and thanks for having me. And thanks Sergi for the very good introduction. And you already talked about the big and obvious one that the software the IP behind it, the graphics, et cetera, are typically owned by the developers and publishers of the video games. And those are the first one that is a people often think about but there's a whole ecosystem built around it that in esports drives the whole movement but also the commercial aspects of it.
So for it to be a sport there has to be some kind of competition. And competitions are normally organize in tournaments and leagues as in regular sports. They might look quite different as regular sports is used to because often they take place online. Et cetera. However, these competition have brands. Have set ups that are protected by intellectual property rights when it comes to brands typically trademarks. That the organizers secure, protect in order to be able to license them out and also as you said to have control over their product if you so want to call it. And there can be other aspects if you actually have onsite events where you might have intellectual property rights the and set of the stages and et cetera, et cetera. That's to tournaments and leagues.
They, of course, then also use broadcasting, streaming, which is a separate kind of intellectual property right. That is commercialized to create income and typically, in traditional sports the biggest one, actually, how you make sure you can stage your events. Now if you go to the other side, more under the participant side, there you have the teams and the players and the teams and the players have over time really evolved into IP power houses because they realized okay we have an opportunity out of just through the competition, through prize money, et cetera, to commercialize our brands. And to actually support what we are doing.
And that typically also is done through the avenue of trademarks.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thanks so much, and back to you, Sergi, as a tournament organizer, what do you need to take into account from an IP perspective? Vis‑a‑vis the developers?
>> SERGI MESONERO: Well vis‑a‑vis the video game companies you basically have to have the permission to organize and to communicate to broadcast the tournament at the end of the day. From that ownership the rest of the chain value is created. So you don't ‑‑ you are not only need the permission in the form usually of license to play a video game. Most players would not be that like aware. They are aware from a subconscious way that you have to tick like yes, nobody really reads accept for lawyers nobody really reads the whole end user license agreement that actually you need to grow to a series of things that give you give you the permission to use that video game and that extended for the whole sector.
You need a license or a permission, either tacit or explicit to publicly communicate the game, which means to organize the tournament and you need to broadcast it and you node to create content around it. To explore anything in any way.
So there's though quite a bit of a difference between what would be commercial, professional tournament organizers. And would be community cross roads tournament organizers. Because and this is generally speaking because at the end of the day every company may have a different policy. And it goes more than that, every company may have a different policy for different games in different territories.
So this makes the landscape a bit tricky and complicated to navigate sometimes. But for generally speaking for all that is ‑‑ all the community tournament, grassroot tournament, many companies have automatic licenses that allow you to use that video game and to broadcast that video game without any explicit per mix, you just need to follow a series of basic conditions like, for example, I don't know if you are giving prizes, you cannot give prizes higher than a specific quantity.
Or you cannot commercialize on television, for example, something very basic. That has a double objective for one hand you are creating ‑‑ you are creating your own community. You are building it. On the other hand it's free marketing as well for your video game. For commercial tournament organizers things tend to be quite different.
Also generally speaking, there are different tires or types or licenses depending on the origin and size of the tournament so again, I'm generalizing because every case is different. But for tournaments, for example, that have a prize that goes between one quantity and another. And that are shown on free platforms on the internet. That are not organizing any life event but they are not having ticketing for example. So they automatic licenses may apply as well. But the bigger tournament and the for example the more international it gets usually the more explicit that needs to be.
The license to the point that for the bigger ones you need to negotiate a specific contract with a video game company.
Again, this may vary from company to company and from game to game and from territory to territory. But this is generally speaking what tournament organizers have to have in mind. They need to have some kind of permission to operate the tournaments.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thanks and some things that come to mind seeing the amazing shows the tournament itself with the stages and the musicians and with the cups themselves being designed by famous companies. And all these things, by the way, are always going to be protected by intellectual property. So that amazing music we can hear during the tournament and the amazing design, whether virtual and real can also be protected by various IP rights.
And of course then we move to the teams and the players themselves, which are an important part of the ecosystem and they do own IP rights. And Daniel, can I turn to you about that?
>> DANIEL ZOHNY: Sure and you're right the teams and players especially in recent years have become much more professional in how they can go about using their brands that they've built over the years and making sure that they are self‑sustained also. They don't rely that much on maybe the publishers and the developers apart from what they are playing of course but they are brand of their own right. And they use that especially teams or it started with the teams more. But in recent years, as in regular sport event, when shifted a lot to players also as they became more notorious. And they realized okay, we should engage in protecting our IP because it's important in brand building and in commercialization that you can get sponsorships.
You could have licensing deals. And that on the on the other hand your partners see oh you are doing something about it and you have some exclusivity. You have seen it a lot with some of the players and probably the most prominent one who really went full throttle and realized what he can do with his brand, Tyler Bevins, ninja who started early onto protect his IP mainly through trademark registration. He had for a one person I think about 25 registrations which is not bad.
That range from what he does, entertainment in the end. Because largely his income comes from endorsement deals, from streaming, on Twitch, et cetera. But also clothing, merchandiser, he does not only have a trademark in his name, ninja or his game tag. And he has a logo and an additional logo in his company. And in the claim of that he uses a lot to exemplify how much time he puts in his craft. And he did protect all this.
Also to make sure and I think it's very important, especially in esports or in gaming overall, that most of it happens online. There's a lot of other people that would like to benefit off of this. And you as the player can then at least control how your brand is used and act against imposters. If somebody is impersonating you and has their own social media accounts up and running their own Twitch streams and people might think it's you and looking for followers, you can shut that down quickly if you have the tools in place, which again based on IP.
>> SERGI MESONERO: We are seeing lately something I find fascinating on the topic of teams and players is that up until now or since recently, the intellectual property of the games and the intellectual property of the players did not interact that much.
Except at the time of playing or ‑‑ sorry, except at the time of broadcasting and so on. But now we are seeing how teams and players IP is even introduced inside the games. Um, and for example, we've seen how this is mostly of course for the top tier of competition, but how teams may have their brand applied to cosmetics inside games. So the fans their fans can play the video game using a scheme as a cosmetic for their character and their tools and weapons that it's branded with a ‑‑ with their favorite team brand.
So this is a recent development. Even more we are also seeing how the brand ‑‑ the brands in the form of name tags. And the likenesses of a video game players are also being put inside the video games. One probably the best example is in the case of League of Legends with Faker which is a traditional considered the best ever League of Legends players how his likeness has been put as skins inside the video games and how you can run by Faker inside the video game as a skin.
So this is something I find that's unique of the esport ecosystem. It has also been applied more generally in video game play with influencers, with streamers in games such as fortnight and others. But in cases specific of professional esport players and teams, this is something that is pushing as well for where the economy of the whole ecosystem before for the most part. And it still is the economy of esport is very much based into advertising and sponsorship but now it's diversifying also in this way that's using the intellectual property of teams and players
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thanks. And for me to do this a bit of a shameless plug in a way. By using some of many of WIPO services the players wherever they are in the world, they can really more easily and cost effectively by the way, protect their brands, for example the metric system based on a international treaty agreed by many, many countries and there's a lot of tools out there that can be used to protect your brand as a player and a team.
Of course this goes beyond. I promise a moment of seeing if there's any questions from the audience.
And that the moment where I'm looking at all the apartments here in Oslo. Sorry not in Oslo, in Norway. But as well as looking online.
If there are no currently questions I'm gathering everybody is thinking on all the things they want to ask until the very end. And we will also have a moment for that. And in that case, let me turn to Alexia, who will moderate a part of the event down the road now. Alexia, over to you.
>> ALEXIA GKORITSA: Thank you, Ryszard. And thank you everyone for the great discussion so far. So we will now turn to the second part of our session where we will hear a bit more about how IP is the managed in this space. For that I'm very happy to welcome my colleague Rafael Ferraz Vazquez, a legal officer at WIPO's corporate division. Rafael worked on corporate and digital content at WIPO for over 10 years.
He's joining us online today to talk about how copyright is licensed in the world of esport, so over to you, thank you.
>> RAFAEL FERRAZ VAZQUEZ: Thank you very much Alexia and thanks to you. And for being in the session. The it's pleasure to share this session with Sergi and Daniel. As we already heard the video games are at the centre of the esport activity. Even also now we have a number of growing IP from other stakeholders. Such as tournament organizer that might register their trademark. The players that might seek protection for IP for some of their contents that it has a growing commercial value.
So esports, although the video game is a fundamental requirement and it has a number, a multitude of IP protecting this content from different elements of the video game in order to ensure this multimillion investment is not only in creating but curating and maintaining this video game to enable the esports activity leads to a number of IP bets, those stakeholders might sometimes find themselves on asking themselves on how to harmonize the different ownership and the different IP in a esport event.
So is so the very basic thing is that that's part of this esport environment needs to have clear and specific understanding of the conditions on the ‑‑ especially the commercial activities they undertake in esports, for example, a content create, be a tournament organizer (coughing) or even a sponsor on brands.
So for players it's very important to understand the fact they acquire a license to play the video game is as a consumer as a user does not mean they cannot take a lot of different acts within the esports activity.
And they need to make sure that when they go beyond playing the video game from the private environment they understand the acts they are doing from an IP perspective and even from a business perspective. So if they, for example, associate themselves and stream and have sponsorship over their activities that might trigger conditions that they are not allowed to understood take with further authorization of the publishers or the video game company.
So (coughing) this is very important as the number of content creates related to esports and video games in general is growing. Significantly. Especially in around the world. And also the importance of the commercial significance of those activities are also growing as the base continues to grow. And the brands like to have the opportunity to communicate to these fund base that are highly involved in esports. So goal of esports a number of team organizations and tournament organizers are involved and also protecting the IP. And managing the IP around esports.
Some of those activities are authorized by the video game publishers. And he mentioned it was recording to the publisher and the right owner and also to the territory. The video game and even to the type of activity. Some of those activities especially if they have a community aspect and with lower commercial significance, they are actually allowed and that's made clear in the website of the publisher, where they say the conditions where the organization of the tournament is allowed with how they need to ask for further authorization. So those small tournaments are mostly allowed. And if someone is organizing an tournament they need to seek and understand those conditions in order to apply in practice.
In other conditions, there's a way to seek that authorization. And there are pre‑conditions to facilitate the authorization from a publisher. So certainly we see that a number of video game publishers and the right owners of course would like to foster the development of esports around the world. And in some cases it's quite straightforward for stakeholders to actually obtain and ensure they are following and respecting the IP rights of the I'd video publishers. With the conditions being very clear in terms of participation. In prize. In broadcasting streaming. And in the type of sponsorship that is tournament organizer might have.
So this is also important for those stakeholders that engage into commercial relationship with sponsors or brands in order to avoid infringement that could actually ‑‑ can bring a damage either to the team, the player and/or the tournament organizer in case there's a lack of authorization that leads, for example, for the cancellation for a tournament or for an IP infringement from the part of one of those stakeholders.
And having said that, being protected by copyrights there's a owned by those that created the video game, there's a number of relationships between the difference stakeholders of the esports environment from the publisher to the developer that created and maintained for example the service of the video game to the players, team, tournament organizers and sponsors? Brands. And they are ‑‑ they all have of course contractual relationships to enable the exploitation of the business models in the esports. For example, in entry of fostering different business models such as sponsors and advertising and this could be a number of different sponsor ships from sponsorship to the tournament, sponsorship to teams and private, personal sponsorships to players and so on.
You also have of course the possibility of merchandising and the broadcasting and streaming. And cases where there's an agreement related to data involved in the esports. And as I mentioned, depending on the conditions of those agreements and the characteristics of the business models, the how the video game is being used in that business model, either the IP of the video game is not used or used according to one of licensees pre‑approved by the publish other. Or the own owner of the IP will need to authorize the exploitation of the IP rights. Some of the exploitation of the copyrights establishing of course the conditions. And here the typical conditions in IP contracts such as the territory the time, the another type of conditions such as renumeration and so on will need to remain clear for those involved in exploitation and authorization of those IP rights.
And again, as is esports become more and more relevant around the world, especially with different activities and tournaments, and being created and expended, it's important that everybody involved in this esports understands the consequences and the importance and also how to manage the IP in order to successfully exploit the esport activity. And that's why we are delightful with the video game in Europe who are looking to make it clear for tournament and organizers to manage their IP in an accessible way to foster the business models and to foster their continuation of the expansion of esports around the world.
So in terms of players and managing the IP, there are a number of key issues, for example, to understand the content own ownership and licensing and the issue of monetization and revenue sharing, for example. The cases of game modifications. And of course understanding when it's an authorized use of material protected by copyright from the video game. And the cases of trademark infringement that's very much important for brands and sponsors. From the perspective of tournament organizers, a key number of key elements that is important for them related to IP is of course to secure the license to use the video game in the way they had first seen in the tournament.
To develop a proactive IP strategy not to of course have less problems because they did not obtain the authorization for the type of uses they foreseen to have contracts in place. And of course by the time all those stakeholders beyond the video game publisher also protect the IP become right owners of IP of course they also start to have interest in protecting the IP and enforcing to avoid all the stakeholders is used the IP without the authorization. For example a tournament organizer might have the interest to control the trademark of the name of the tournaments to avoid the third parties, for example, associate themselves with the tournament without being true.
(coughing) those two stakeholders will the teams and players in the tournament organizer will certainly benefit from the upcoming publication that we are finalizing between WIPO and video game Europe. I hope all of you have access to that in the near future. And of course I'm available for any question you might have. Back to you, Alexia.
>> ALEXIA GKORITSA: Thank you, Rafael. So I will take the next few minutes to talk about you may have seen in the schedule how we can prepare for disputes in games and the esports generally and how we can resolve them better. I will continue along the same vein as Rafael and mention some tool that is a the WIPO makes available for stakeholders to use.
But let me start with a quick observation. I'm in ‑‑ all the speakers mentioned so far along several line that is a the we are talking here about an industry that moves fast. Faster than most, really. And an industry that nowadays is almost 100% digital. And it's collaborative. Let me add we are talking about an industry where conflicts with inevitable. In many industries when there's a dispute the first thing is to go to court. But in games and in esports competitions in particular this is not always the best option. And often it is not a realistic option for reasons that have already been mentioned so far. Let me add.
So there are a few reasons for that. We have discussed quite extensively and this is a global platform. And studios and players organizers often work across borders or fully online as Daniel mentioned so that creates confusion which courts have jurisdiction or which law applies. We could have a developer in Tokyo a publisher in LA. A player in Germany. A tournament, which took place fully online. So the question arises where would you even file a claim?
In the case of if that is dispute. Second, court proceedings take time. In most jurisdictions they can last for years. And by the time a judgment is issued, the game or the competition in that case might already be in excision or no longer relevant. And moreover, courts may not always have the specialized knowledge. So we may encounter judges and jurisdictions that do not fully understand the technical or commercial realities of the industry.
About which the previous speakers have already talked. And finally, litigation is costly. In the studio for example or a midsize tournament organize organizers or individual players or streaming. pursuing in court may not be a viable option. And cert and litigation can be slow and sometimes too expensive or too complex or even too rigid for what the sector needs. This is where alt dispute resolution or ADR may come in as a more realistic option. I mentioned already in the beginning I work with an arbitration and mediation centre of WIPO.
Here we have worked for quite a few years for almost 30 years now on resolving IP in tech‑related disputes through ADR. ADR may encompass a variety of methods. So we talk about mediation, arbitration, expert determination.
I will not delve into the specifics of its procedure. Suffice to say here that the we have also noticed with years of experience that games and esports in particular bring unique challenges. And this is why we identify the need for tools that there are even more specialized. And this is where the new tool comes in that the it's called the international games and esport tribunal or IGET. IGET is relative (?) by the joint initiative by WIPO and the esport commission. It's a sector specific ADR framework. That we created following also consultations with the stakeholders from across the industry. So contrary to what I mentioned a few minutes ago about court litigation, and contrary to what the applies on ADR in general f if I may say there are some things that make IGET different and more suitable for dispute that is a may arise here.
First of all we put together a specific rule set. Which draws inspiration to a great extent from the WIPO idea of rules that have been in place for a couple years but adopted specifically for games and esports. So we have tried to reflect the realities of the digital content, licensing models, cross borders activities. And the platform‑based ecosystems in particular.
Moreover, the cases that are brought for resolution before IGET are brought by neutrals of knowledge of the sector. So we put together arbitrators and mediate experts which have been selected by virtue of the legal skills but also based on their industry‑specific expertise. The proceedings are also confidential to a great extent to which may matter a lot as you understand in an industry where the reputational risks are quite high. And there are also flexible in the sense that the based on what the parties tell us we could have faster proceedings, proceedings that take place fully online. And in general, proceedings that are adopted a little bit to match the scale of the dispute and the subject matter at hand.
Moreover, we have tried to put together the proceedings in the way that they are cost effective and accessible. I mentioned already this is a not for profit initiative and the costs are usually scaled. Based on the nature of the dispute and the value of the subject matter this brought for resolution. We tried to encourage the contact of the proceedings fully online. Especially when participants come from all over the world. And that encompasses the file of the case to hearings to the resolution, which is also another factor that can keep the barriers quite low.
Lastly and maybe more importantly, the IGET offers a platform that's neutral and international and also avoids to some extent the risks and uncertainties even of going to court in foreign jurisdictions. Now, that in terms of the proceedings in terms of subject matter, we have tried to design a forum that will be able to handle basically all types of dispute that is a may arise in the in the industry. So we talk of course about IP related disputes such as the ones that Rafael talked about and the previous pages, including copy right, and licensing and trademarks and et cetera, et cetera.
Commercial use such as merchandising or sponsorships. And contractual disputes. And here we see quite a few disputes with involved players and teams or players and tournament organizers. Platform related issues also such adds uses pertaining to streaming or take downs and content take down early and et cetera, et cetera.
What we characterize our strict sense of competitive or integrity related uses where we have leveraged quite a lot of experience where that the commission brought to the table because we as the part of WIPO the MC we understand brought the biggest chunk of expertise when it comes to IP and commercial issues.
So to circle a bit back and to wrap up what I wanted to say and I mean, you saw in the title of my presentation that we talked about preparing for the resolution disputes as well. In all honesty, you understand already by the multiplicity by the stakeholders involved that disputes will happens happen. And that's part of doing business not just in the esport field but in general. But if we are smart about preparation we can make sure they are handled quickly and fairly and with the right expertise.
my first advice is simply the preparation is key. Stakeholders need not wait for a conflict to appear before thinking a it be resolution. Being proactive using clear contracts which include clear dispute res lugs clauses and in particular clear ADR clause clauses is key. The dispute of the resolution clauses spell out what disputes will be resolved in what language. To that example, we as WIPO MC and also IGET provide model clauses the users can easily adapt.
It's also important for stakeholders to know their options. I spoke quite a bit about ADR in general and IGET in particular but it is important for a stakeholders to be aware of these options and in that sense being able to choose the process that makes more sense. For example, when it comes to ADR mediation can be great for preserving a relationships and creates a more amicable resolution. And while arbitration is be more for a court resolution and providing a binding decision when needed
And all in all, planning early can same time and protect relationships and help projects move forward when there's a disagreement.
That was all on my side. So thank you very much. Looking forward for your questions later on. And I will give the floor back to Ryszard.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thank you Alexia and thank you of course to Rafael. And this is the moment we promise to open the floor up to questions from the audience, both the ones here. Both here with us as well as those joining online.
First having a look at the room here. If there are any raised hands. There is someone coming up over the mic
>> My name is Kenneth, I previously was with media and entertainment conglomerate focusing on public policy and governance affairs but I wanted to ask my question as someone who observe esports tournament and cash streamer live stream.
One of the most common complaint that is a stand out to me on their live stream is laments how they couldn't use the copyrighted music and all the tools et cetera because the video will get demonetized when they upload to a certain platforms or to the live streams.
But question is how can the esport ecosystem or the IP committee help elevate each other so the entire ecosystem are aware of the copyrights or intellectual property. Because like IP is sort of interlinked.
I guess it's also important for them to understand how laments one part of the intellectual protocoled impact the income. And let's say especially esport players might not be there for creation. They just want to have fun. Or have some economic value. There's a mindset going into creation might be different from what we have been looking at for artists or authors. I would love to have your take on how to increase the awareness, especially when they have such a global reach. And the global reach to young audiences. And when the young people grow up hearing about all those complaints and laments about copyrights, I don't think it's a good development prospect for the IP committee. So your thought on that?
>> SERGI MESONERO: It also connects with the one we had online, don't you think so?
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Yes, I can read the question we received online. The user license agreements with treatment treated as licenses and imposing restrictions on the fame. And these restriction may not relate to the game underlying IP but requiring things like requiring permission to up lead load the video even if the video player own or organizing tournaments can this be void since the LS is written in a way that the players could have knowledge of the restrictions posed on them?
>> SERGI MESONERO: I will start with the this one, which I may not be able to answer. I don't know if Daniel is brave enough. It's highly technical. But from a practical point of view, actually there's not an issue.
Because as I mentioned before, for the most part, and I would say it's high practical universal video games companies will allow the use of the game of the for broadcast reasons and for free online streaming reasons and for community tournaments. For free and automatically. You will only face a problem basically if you are simplifying because if you are commercializing that. And if you are commercializing that I'm sorry, you are not an individual player that is just having fun. You are planning to have like a you are basically acting as a business.
And on the other hand, if you are doing something that's basically catastrophically bad like I don't know, using for example, adult together with a game. In that case it will not apply ‑‑ it will not directly apply the video game company it will involve mostly the streaming service.
So the question is I think from the point of view of the theoretical very interesting but currently it has limited practical implications. Because the players are allowed to do all that. And they are not ‑‑ they are not seeing any issue.
And answering to the in person question here. I think that the situations has changed a lot in the previous 10, 15 years. I think there's more literacy right now among players and especially the top tier on the topic of intellectual property. As our colleague Rafael from WIPO has mentioned together with us with video games Europe, we are also helping with a publication of a guide for players and tournament organizers, which of course it's aimed mostly to the either the non‑commercial or the more community‑based or to those that are let's say starting a business, more than to the elite and to the professional ‑‑ to the professional tier.
Wrapping up, I think what I would say is that the sector has adopted quite well to a situation where there's a highly engaged community that just wants to share their passion for that ‑‑ for those games and that's not ‑‑ and ‑‑ does not feel ‑‑ all those lines and all those issues are transparent for them. The issues come when you are trying to ‑‑ mostly when you are trying to make a business out of it.
>> DANIEL ZOHNY: And maybe adding to that, I fully agree. We also in my practice we don't see a lot of issues when people come and ask what can we do? And then you look into the restrictions that may be publishers put on their games it's also about commercialization. It's never ‑‑ or ethics. Or inappropriate behavior.
Otherwise, the publishers are aware, you are the customer. You are the fan. They want to push that and they also know that you are disseminating your games and they are making them popular and driving their profit or their community. However, I think there's this weird interaction where a lot of people online will complain about oh my stream got shutdown for one another reason or another. Oh I only use something protected by IP and suddenly it got taken offline. But people should be aware why are you doing it? A lot of them are trying to commercialize it. They have to be aware of IP and the restrictions because on the flip side they would use the same reasoning once their business takes off.
So there is an interaction between the two. And sometimes but it can be unfortunate when really people are trying to have fun through automated processes some IP protection kicks in. And just shuts things down. That happens but there has to be found the right balance, I guess.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: I see that Rafael raised his hand. Over to you for a moment.
>> RAFAEL FERRAZ VAZQUEZ: Thank you, just along the same lines of Sergi and Daniel mentioned and I just wanted to thank both questions they are interesting. Regarding the question in the chat. I just ‑‑ when he mentioned that the end user license agreements restricts some issues that were not really related to IP, I think it's quite the opposite when we talk about organizing events and streaming that's very much related today to being in the game. So tournaments organizers we will of course want to associate themselves with the video game by using the trademark, by using the characters and by using all the images and art created for the video game and that is protected by IP, either by trademark or by copyright or other means.
So someone takes that and they are using the IP in the video game. And same as broadcasting or streaming the game play of the video game even if it's tolerated in many occasions, the animation it's still the use of the IP of the video game. The same way that broadcasting your movie or broadcasting a TV show it's using the IP over that movie or that video show. So‑so it's very much related to the idea.
I think what is clear and what mentioned in the license for users when you purchase a license to play is what you are authorized does not include those activities but it is very much linked to IP. And related to the question from the gentleman in there in the venue, I think it's the same question we came up with. How can we make clear the role? And how to better use IP in esports to avoid the pitfalls? For example or content create to have the content demonetized or for a player no longer to be able to complete professionally because of the an IP issue. For a tournament organizer to avoid any problem in organizing an event or making agreements with sponsorships and brands. And I hope we are going to provide at least a partial answer or partial solution if not a full solution to that need.
So bring IP into discussion for the esports community.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thanks, Rafael. Daniel, I'm sorry, I would love to give you the voice but I'm very aware of that red clock going almost over time. So before finishing, just let me also underline one important part always for us in WIPO is we make sure everyone is aware of how they can benefit from intellectual property. And that means the small game developers who every game of the world developing esport titles. This is the players from all corn others of the world creating their brand. And they can be and should be benefiting from the intellectual property system. Asides from IGET and aside from the upcoming guide we have a lot of materials available from WIPO. And we are trying to exactly empower those small developers, those small ‑‑ the beginning players who don't yet have the knowledge on how to protect their brand and how to protect their images.
This is thing the materials there you have the links as well. So I'm putting that up on the screen. And with that, we are passed the time. It's 0, 0, 0. I'm having the signs being shown. So just let me end by first of all thanking my panelists here who have joined us. And of course thanking also my colleagues from WIPO who have also join us online.
Let me just end by emphasizing and underlying in WIPO we continue to provide initiatives to help all innovators and interpreters and creators in esports and beyond and we looking forward to working with you are partners across the world and across industries to make sure that everyone everywhere can benefit from IP. Thank you for your participation. And looking forward to some coffees. Thanks, thank you.
(applause).