The book-to-game anaolgy isn't sound just to point out. When you buy a book, you do own the book, just not the right to copy, publish, and redistribute said copies.
Yes, you do own the book, just not the contents of the book, if its a novel, then the content is the story, which you do not own.
The confusion came from the words.
When we say we buy a
book, The book refer to the physical book; ie the paper, ink etc.
But when we say, we buy a
game (a physical console game
), what we are actually saying is, we buy a game CD, or a game DVD etc.
But few people say, I buy a Game CD. People just say, I buy a game. Its a convenience short form to essentially saying, buying a game CD (omitting the CD or DVD/bluray).
So we actually own the CD (like we own the book), but we do not own the content it contains (the game itself, or the story in the book).
This rules apply to most IPs, even your car. You own the parts, & you can do whatever you wanted with the cars & parts (that legally allowed), but you do not own the technology/design etc behind it.
I hope that clears up a bit of confusion.
On a side note, talking about books,
Stories, like paintings, & many Ips, have a limited Copyright periods, which differs from palces to places.
Quoted from IP UK link:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-duration-faq-lasts.htm
But in general, the terms of protection in the UK are as follows:
- Copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work lasts for the life of the author and 70 years from the end of the year in which he/she died.
- Copyright in a film expires 70 years after the end of the year in which the death occurs of the last to survive of the principal director, the authors of the screenplay and dialogue, and the composer of any music specially created for the film.
So everybody owns classic like Snow white (but not Disney version, or movie adaption of snow white), Alice in Wonderland, A nightmare before Christmas etc. If you want, you can make books, CD, movies out of these classic without paying a single cents to anyone. Of course, as courtesy, you should indicated in your book, who is the original author.