Stern Electronics, Inc. v. Kaufman · US Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit · 1982

Can game images be copyrighted?

Short answer: Yes: images and sounds are protected.

The facts. A company copied the arcade game Scramble and sold it as Scramble 2. It argued the game's images were not fixed, because each playthrough looked different and the images came from a program, not a film strip.

The ruling. Stern Electronics v. Kaufman (1982): The court held a video game's sounds and images can be copyrighted as an audiovisual work, even though they change a little in each game.

It was the first federal appeals decision recognizing a video game as a copyrighted audiovisual work. The ruling came during the wave of knock-offs that flooded arcades in the early 1980s.

Read the source

For fun, not legal advice.