Imagine a small indie studio about to sign its first publishing deal. The playable demo runs smoothly, the visual style looks sharp, and the publisher wants to move forward. Then comes the due diligence request that stalls everything: show us that you own or control the rights to everything in the game.
The founders wrote most of the code. A freelance artist designed the characters. The soundtrack mixes original tracks with stock audio. Several environment props came from an online marketplace. An early collaborator left six months ago, and the agreement covering their work sits buried somewhere in an old email thread.
The team can demo the game in ten minutes. Proving who made what, and under which terms, can take weeks.
IP questions come up throughout production. A competitor might copy a character, a contractor might dispute how their work is used, or a confidential prototype might leak online. Preparing for these moments means keeping a clear, dated record of the work, the contracts attached to it, and every version shared outside the team.
What, exactly, are you protecting?
A video game is not a single piece of intellectual property; it combines several kinds. Code, art, dialogue, and music usually fall under copyright. Game titles and logos involve trademark rules. Proprietary tools and game-balancing formulas may count as trade secrets, while certain novel technical systems might qualify for a patent. As WIPO's overview of video games and IP points out, these rights and requirements vary depending on the country and the asset.
For a studio, the best place to start is with the files themselves: 3D models, animation clips, dialogue scripts, audio tracks, and source code for core mechanics. Each asset has an author, a creation date, and terms that dictate how the studio can use it.
The difference between an idea and its expression is just as important. The U.S. Copyright Office notes that copyright protects original creative expression, never raw concepts, systems, or game mechanics. Pitching "a cooperative survival game on a derelict space station" gives no exclusive right to that setup. The actual code, art, audio, and written words may qualify for protection. A verified timestamp can establish that specific work existed by a recorded time; it cannot turn a generic game idea into exclusive property.
Connect assets to the people and agreements behind them
Consider the freelance character artist. The studio has the finished model and a paid invoice. But does the contract grant full ownership, or only a license? Does it allow sequels, merchandising, or engine ports? Was the character built from scratch, or adapted from an existing base model?
A folder named after a contributor shows where the file came from, but it leaves the legal relationship unproven.
In Mastering the Game (p. 248), WIPO discusses the importance of agreements covering ownership when hiring contractors. The rights acquired depend on the applicable law and contract. A payment receipt or invoice is not a substitute for a signed contract.
A practical studio archive keeps the legal paperwork right next to the delivery. For commissioned work, store the signed contract, assignment of rights, acceptance emails, and source files together. For marketplace assets, save the specific license terms and purchase receipts. For departing team members, retain the agreements establishing which rights the studio holds in their contributions. A digital certificate can prove the date and integrity of these files, but it will not fix missing permissions or vague contracts.
Preserve the development history before you need it
If a distinctive creature from your demo turns up in another game, the finished model is only part of your evidence. Early concept sketches, discarded drafts, 3D sculpt iterations, and commit logs tell a much stronger story of how your design took shape.
The same trail protects you if another company accuses your studio of copying. Showing your internal work step by step can support an account of independent creation and clarify which third-party assets you used under license. The real value comes from records made during day-to-day work, rather than evidence scrambled together after a dispute begins.
There is no need to change your daily workflow. Keep using your regular version control and project tools. Alongside that stream, save dated snapshot packages at key milestones - such as the first playable build, approved character sets, investor pitch builds, and release candidates.
When preparing a package for a publisher, include the build, key source files, a design document, and a short summary of third-party libraries and licenses. Package what a reviewer will actually need; copying an entire project directory without context creates clutter instead of clarity.
Keep the exact files behind the evidence
A digital timestamp or certificate is only helpful if the studio can produce the exact file that matches it.
Game production makes this tricky. An artist re-exports a model with new settings, an audio track gets re-rendered, textures are recompressed, or the project moves to an updated engine version. The game may look identical on screen, but the file's underlying bytes have changed. Its digital fingerprint (hash) will no longer match the version recorded months earlier.
To avoid this trap, keep the exact files sent to partners in safe, read-only storage alongside your everyday repositories. Active code repositories show ongoing work, but the preserved milestone packages provide the static baseline needed if ownership is ever challenged. Regular backups, secure key storage, and checks that files can still be opened help keep your evidence usable without relying on a single laptop or drive.
Record what leaves the studio
Different pitches require different levels of access. A publisher pitch might only need a short video and a pitch deck. Technical due diligence might expose source code and engine tools, while a co-development partner might need raw art assets.
Treat each disclosure as its own package. Note exactly which build was sent, who received it, what organization they represent, and which non-disclosure agreement (NDA) covers the exchange. If confidential material leaks later, this log can help investigate the disclosure history. Preserve the signed NDA or recorded acceptance of terms alongside it.
Keep in mind that technical tools have limits. Email verification establishes control of the designated email address; it does not establish the person's identity or authority to sign an agreement for their employer. Once someone downloads a build, access logs cannot stop them from copying it to another drive. Signed contracts and technical tracking must work together.
Start with your next milestone
Getting organized does not require pausing production to audit years of old files. Start with the next milestone. Assemble the exact build, design notes, and key art ready for your next submission. Match those assets with their contractor agreements and marketplace licenses, timestamp the package before sharing it, and log who receives it. Repeating this simple routine at each major milestone turns due diligence from a panic into a quick, routine review.
How Bernstein supports this process
Managing evidence, version histories, and confidential disclosures by hand takes time that small teams rarely have. The Bernstein platform supports this process alongside the tools a studio already uses:
- Certification with independent time evidence: Bernstein fingerprints your files and encrypts them in your browser before upload. Only the fingerprints are anchored on the Bitcoin blockchain. Qualified EU timestamps and timestamps from a Chinese authority are also available, depending on the plan. These separate certificates provide independently verifiable evidence of existence and integrity at the recorded times, as explained in How Bernstein works.
- Encrypted, versioned storage: To prevent the file-mismatch problem, Bernstein pairs time-stamping with zero-knowledge encrypted storage. Files are encrypted client-side before upload, preserving the exact bit-for-bit originals needed to verify certificates years down the line. Studios can export certificates and verification materials for independent validation. They must retain the corresponding original files and the keys needed to access any encrypted copies.
- Secure sharing for pitches and milestones: When sending confidential builds, design documents, or pitch decks to publishers and external partners, Bernstein Secure Sharing links access directly to a certified version. It verifies control of the designated recipient email address, can require acceptance of your NDA before unlocking files, and logs download events.
- Complementary to legal advice: Bernstein provides the technical evidence trail - records of existence, integrity, and disclosure. It does not replace contracts or legal advice, but gives your lawyers and publishers verifiable records to assess alongside the agreements and other evidence supporting ownership.
Sources
- David Greenspan, S. Gregory Boyd and Jas Purewal. Video Games and IP: A Global Perspective , 30 April 2014
- U.S. Copyright Office, What Does Copyright Protect?
- World Intellectual Property Organization, Mastering the Game, Discussion of employees and independent contractors, p. 248.
