.Recently, according to the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court news, the game "My World" agency, v. the game "Mini World" development company, infringement of its copyright and unfair competition case final judgment.
The court found that "Mini World" development company "Shenzhen Mini Play" constituted unfair competition, ordered it to delete 230 infringing elements in the game, and compensate "Minecraft" agency "NetEase" 50 million yuan.
Minecraft, as you all know, is a classic sandbox game developed by Swedish company Mojang. In 2016, NetEase has the exclusive operation right in China and the right to defend against any intellectual property infringement and unfair competition. In the same month, Shenzhen Mini Play Company launched Mini World on mobile phone Android terminal, and then launched mobile ios version and computer version one after another.
In 2019, NetEase filed a lawsuit with the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, accusing Mini World of copying the core basic elements of many games from Minecraft, and the overall picture of the two games is highly similar, which constitutes copyright infringement and unfair competition, and requested the court to order Mini Play Company to stop the infringement, eliminate the impact, and compensate 50 million yuan.
The Shenzhen People's Court of first Instance found that "Mini World" constituted copyright infringement, and ordered Mini Play Company to delete the infringing game elements and compensate NetEase Company more than 21.13 million yuan. Subsequently, both parties refused to accept the appeal to the Guangdong High Court.
The Guangdong High Court found that the two games involved belong to sandbox games, which only set basic game goals and rules, and provide players with basic game resources or elements such as wood, food, and creatures, so that players can freely explore and interact in the virtual world. Players can use the game's pre-set basic game resources to create virtual objects, buildings, landscapes and even game worlds through destruction, synthesis and construction. "Mini World" mainly profits from user recharge, the total number of downloads from various channels has exceeded 3.36 billion times, and it has gained more than 400 million registered users since its launch.
The Guangdong High Court held that the overall screen of the two games constituted a similar electronic work, that is, an "audio-visual work" under the new copyright law, but the similarities between the two lay in the game element design rather than the game screen, so NetEase's claim of copyright infringement was rejected.
At the same time, the court held that "Mini World" and "Minecraft" are highly similar in gameplay rules, and there are many overlaps in the details of game elements, which has exceeded the limit of reasonable reference. By copying the design of game elements, mini-play companies directly grab the key and core personalized business value of others' intellectual achievements, seize business opportunities by improperly obtaining others' business interests, and constitute unfair competition.
In the determination of the amount of compensation, the court held that as an infringing party, the Mini-play company should have the relevant data of its business income, but refused to provide it to the court without justifiable reasons, and it should bear the legal consequences of adverse presumption. The comprehensive calculation of various methods shows that the infringement profit of the mini-play company far exceeds the amount of compensation claimed by NetEase, and fully supports its compensation claim.
Discerning people can see that "Mini world" itself is a copy of "My World" started from the game product, although in the follow-up localization operation more brilliant, become a popular product, but still can not change its plagiarism nature. The fundamental appeal of NetEase's lawsuit is to stop the operation of "Mini World", and unfortunately this goal has not been achieved. However, the compensation amount of up to 50 million yuan is enough to make the mini play company reflect on its despicable behavior.
It is unclear how much the gameplay and player retention of Mini Worlds will change with the removal of Minecraft related elements. But it is certain that this judgment will become a landmark infringement case in the domestic game market. For the future game infringement cases, it will also play a certain role.
I hope that domestic game manufacturers can take this as a warning, do not put their energy on copying the game and changing the skin, seriously polish the game for innovation, listening to the feedback of players is the final way out to do a good job. (Source: Gold name label)
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