Intellectual Property Rights Of Gamers In Esports

Esports has become more and more popular with increasing number of players and spectators such growth has brought with it problems related to various legal issues. Esports includes issues related to different branches of law such as unfair competition law, labour law, contract law, criminal law and sports law. Although there are many legal problems that may come up within esports activities, probably the biggest of these issues are related to intellectual property law. Game developers, players, competition organizers, and bro- adcasters of the games, all of these actors in esports ecosystem in short might have various intellectual property rights. The game itself is the subject of copyright as well. However this study is about the intellectual property rights of the players in esports. There are various intellectual property rights of players in both amateur and professional sports activities. The intellectual property rights of the players which might be on their names, images, movements, dances, tattoos, performances, broadcasts, overlays, avatars, costumes used by the players in the game, their improvements on the game equipment, and the improvements in the program code were examined in this study. In addition, in the last part, an evaluation has been made about esports from a futuristic perspective.