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DISPUTES OVER CONVERSION OF 2D WORKS INTO 3D FORM
There have been numerous disputes over whether the unauthorized production of a three-dimensional object from a work of graphic design or a pictorial representation constitutes copyright infringement. In a recent legal inter-pretation, the Intellectual Property Office stated that in order to determine whether making a three-dimensional object on the basis of a two-dimensional artistic or pictorial work in-fringes copyright, it is necessary to examine whether the act involved is in the nature of "re-production" or "implementation". Under the Copyright Law, "reproduction" means repro-ducing a tangible copy of a work by means of printing, reprography, audio or video recording, photography, handwriting or otherwise. It also includes the recording of a dramatic, musical or other similar work at the time of performance or broadcast, and the construction of buildings ac-cording to architectural plans or models. But "implementation" means producing a three-dimensional object on the basis of the concepts expressed in the work, by working as one would from an engineering drawing, in ac-cordance with the dimensions, specifications, structural drawings, etc. indicated, such that the external appearance of the object so produced cannot be objectively recognized by an ordinary person as being the same as the two-dimensional work. A three-dimensional object produced in this way is not the subject of copyright protec-tion.