Someone Successfully Copyrighted a 'Magic: The Gathering' Deck

Someone has just managed to successfully copyright his own Magic: The Gathering deck of cards.

According to reports, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan and known legal provocateur by the name of Dr. Robert Hovden copyrighted his own personal deck of cards. The story broke from journalist Cory Doctorow, who revealed that Hovden’s filing at the United States Copyright Office was successful, but raised a number of concerns for other players within the Magic: The Gathering world.

“Hovden’s public communications around this tease that he may prohibit others from using this deck in tournament play, and says it’s all about ‘owning culture and people’s participation in culture through copyright,’” wrote Doctorow. The filing has no doubt caused a whole deal of controversy within the M:TG community, since building your own custom deck based on various strategies and playing styles is the entire point of the game. With people beginning to copyright certain decks they create, players will become substantially limited in how they can play the game themselves.

As Doctorow himself points out, “The implication is that this could spark a stampede to register copyright in M:TG decks — which are painstakingly assembled for home games and tournament play, sometimes with big-dollar cash payouts — and take the best decks out of the game. This is indeed a gnarly question about the ethics, mechanics and practicalities of US copyright law.”

Wizards of the Coast has yet to respond to the new copyright incident, so players will have to wait and see what lies for the future of Magic: The Gathering.

Elsewhere in gaming, Quake‘s 4K remaster has finally arrived on the PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch.