The tragedy of copyright the fate of Genshin Impact and Maple Leaf

The conversion of interests is so fast and so dangerous to attract popularity and traffic. “Genshin Impact”, which even Apple’s head Cook praised, has now become one of the cases of “Today’s Statement” of the Xuhui District People’s Court in Shanghai. Yesterday, Xuhui District held a seminar on copyright protection and themes in the game industry with the theme of “Building a solid foundation for copyright protection and promoting the development of the game industry”.
This time, the defendant is a “UP master”. Ji, Shi, and Bai uploaded the “Genshin Impact” game video through their accounts registered on a certain platform, which included the undisclosed game character image “Maple Leaf”. The plaintiff, Mihayou Technology Co., Ltd., developed and operated the original role-playing game “Genshin Impact”, which is popular worldwide and has also made it one of the most influential game companies in the world. Mihayou has copyrights for the “Genshin Impact” game software and game character images, costumes, and continuous images presented during the operation process.
In all three cases, before the release of the “Maple Leaf” game character image, the game UP owner on a certain website arbitrarily posted the “Maple Leaf” game character related videos obtained through internal testing on the website, infringing the plaintiff’s information network dissemination rights to the “Maple Leaf” game character. After trial, all three compensated the plaintiff for economic losses and reasonable expenses. Wang Limin, president of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Xuhui Court of Shanghai, explained: “The music, pictures, texts, etc. in online games can all constitute works independently. Some well-designed and original game characters have huge market value because they build the foundation for the commercialization of games.”
Picture: Maple Leaf
In addition to “Genshin Impact”, “Overwatch” and other popular games have also fallen into “distress” many times. Many people joke that the “F4” of Shanghai games are all in Xuhui. Indeed, a large number of key cultural and creative enterprises closely related to copyright from content to technology have gathered here. From 2012 to 2022, a total of 11 units in Xuhui District won the Shanghai Copyright Advantage (Demonstration) Unit, and 3 parks won the Shanghai Copyright Advantage (Demonstration) Park. How to escort them, the “city wall” must be strengthened. From 2018 to March 2023, the Xuhui Court in Shanghai accepted a total of 33 cases involving intellectual property disputes in online games, and the number of cases has been increasing year by year.
Yesterday, around the copyright issues of the game industry, government departments, industry experts, and service agencies shared policy interpretations, case analysis, registration practices, service promotions, etc., and the Xuhui Cultural Tourism Bureau, Xuhui Intellectual Property Bureau, Lilith Games, Mihayou and other related game companies jointly signed the “Industry Initiative for Protecting Game Copyrights”. It is proposed that people in the game industry across the country strive to create a healthy and orderly copyright environment for the game industry, promote the formation of an industry atmosphere that encourages innovation and respects creation, continuously enhance the credibility of the game industry, and continuously promote the sustainable development of the game industry. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Hua Xinyi)