Legal Protection Of Virtual Characters’ Merchandising

The commodity economy of modern society has developed rapidly,and well-known virtual characters usually have broad appeal to consumers.At the same time,related infringement activities have become more and more widespread with the booming market economy.However,at present,China’s legal system has not made clear provisions for the protection of the virtual characters’ merchandising.This article refers to existing theories,and combines a series of recent judgments of the People’s Court with relevant US jurisprudence.The virtual characters’ merchandising is divided into three types: audiovisual character’merchandising,cartoon character’ merchandising,and literary character’s merchandising.Problems Such as the dispute over the application of portrait rights in the audiovisual characters’ merchandising;the identification of standards for the cartoon characters’ merchandising;the selection of judgment standards for the literary characters’ merchandising.In addition,this article analyzes the viewpoint of "consumer attraction" in the virtual characters’ merchandising and advocates the establishment of a separate "merchandising right" to protect the virtual characters’ merchandising.It is difficult to apply,and it is concluded that at present,China should comprehensively protect copyright law,trademark law and anti-non-competition law under the existing legal framework,such as judging the audiovisual role’s copyright through theaudiovisual roles’ merchandising that meet the conditions It applies the protection of copyright law to make independent judgments on the“ingenuity” of cartoon characters,and protects literary roles by referring to the “predictability” standard;strictly using virtual characters to apply for registered trademarks;and clarifying the “potential management” in the unfair competition law "Qualified operator" status.