A Study on Online Game Master and Wok made for hire
In Amanda Lewis v. Activision Blizzard, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco held that Recordings used by defendants of a former employee’s voice for a character in a video game constituted a “work made for hire” under the Copyright Act. The court found evidence that the voice recordings were within the employee's job description, the recordings took place during office hours in Blizzard's studios and were part of her job reviews. Also the federal court found Lewis's state law claims for commercial misappropriation of voice pursuant to California Civil Code Section 3344 to be preempted by the Copyright Act. The purpose of this study is to analyze legal solutions of this case and to study on considerations to construe an employee’s job responsibilities in applying the “work made for hire” doctrines. To achieve the purpose, the study analyzed the Federal Court's decision by examining the legal points in the case. On the basis of the results of the analysis, the study found desirable principles to be applied to game developers and publishers effectively from copyright disputes.