Blizzard Suing against “WoW” Regredit and Chinese Law on Anti-Regredit

Highlights: Civil litigation as Blizzard uses this time is rarely adopted by Chinese game companies as a way to combat against game regredit. With the same logic as those game players who would rather choose regredit, those companies would rather choose another way, in their opinion, more convenient, quick, efficient and be once for all, for why they shall choose a more time and expense costing solution? Actually, Chinese game companies generally combat against the haunting regredit by directly reporting the cases to the police, charging the creators of regredit for crime of illegal business specified in the Criminal Law.

The following is the brief news of Blizzard Entertainment suing the developer of a regredit of World of Warcraft (“WoW”) as edited by Bridge IP Law Commentary. Several years ago Blizzard sued Michael Donnelly, the developer of the WoW regredit MMO Glider. And recently it filed another lawsuit against the WoW robot Pocket Gnome, demanding the infringement stop and compensation. However the robot user is not widespread for it only applies to Mac OS with Intel chipset. Today the Bridge IP Law Commentary would introduce Chinese online game anti-regredit law and its implementation.

What is a game regredit? In our view, a game regredit is the computer program for cheating in the game. For those lawsuit like the one filed by Blizzard against the regredit developer in China may bring two main legal problems. First, to take MMO Glider as the example, the regredit copies the game from HDD into RAM in order to avoid detection by anti-cheat software. According to the current Chinese laws and regulations, this kind of behavior could hardly constitute “copy” of the game program as all things occur in the same computer.

Second, a regredit harms the balance of games, which constitutes the unfair competition specified in Chinese laws, while it isn’t definitely prohibited by laws. When to sue, only the general provisions can be applied, such as the principle of good faith specified in the Article 2 of the Anti-unfair Competition Law of People’s Republic of China. In short, if Blizzard claims the defendant infringes its right of copy and conducts unfair competition, then the accusation of right of copy infringement will probably be rejected, while the claim for unfair competition may be accepted.

Because of the rapid development of the online game industry and the deficient law system in China, the underground industry of regredit is quite developed and the hot games may be regredited by many cheating programs. Accordingly, the online game company has taken various measures to combat the infringement.

However, as far as I know, the civil lawsuit is rarely used by Chinese game companies to combat against game regredit. With the same logic as those game players who would rather choose regredit, those companies would rather choose another way, in their opinion, more convenient, quick, efficient and be once for all, for why they shall choose a more time and expense costing solution?

Desperate diseases must have desperate remedies. Generally Chinese game companies choose to report the cases to the police, charging the developer of regredit of the crime of illegal business specified in the Criminal Law. In the first case that an operator was sentenced for criminal liability in China, the former vice president of Beijing Rising International Software Co., Ltd (the “Rising”) was sentenced to four years imprisonment in the first instance for his developing and operating the regredit of the game “Mir III”.  However, the procuratorate appealed the sentence for the consideration that the sentence was too light, which lead to the second instance and the defendant was finally judged to 6 years imprisonment. In the cases I have read, illegal businessmen operating regredit were also sent to jail by SNDA, Tencent, Zhengtu and other companies.

To our surprise, although the game companies in China have stronger weapons against regredit than that of Blizzard, the problem of regredit in China is much more serious than in U.S.A. Actually the reason is very simple that although some cases are seriously punished, there is a big gap between China and U.S.A in the national legal awareness, completed legal system and serious enforcement etc, while comprehensive treatment is necessary in response to regredit. It is hoped that Chinese game companies can resolve the problem of regredit according to the Civil Procedure Law in the future.

Other posts on our website:
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2. How to Apply for the Trademark Record in China Custom
3. How to improve the success rate of trademark registration in China?
4. Matters for Attention in Trademark Refusal Review in China
5. Introduction of China’s Legal System of Trademark Renewal
6. Introduction on the Regulations concerning the Capital Contribution in IPR or Domain Name in China
7. The Copyright Registration in China Could Be FREE?
8. China Copyright Protection Term Longer than EU’s?
9. Matters for Attention in the Patent Preliminary Injunction Application in China(I)

Author: Ms. Chen Danhong
Paralegal of Shanghai DeBund Law Offices
Co-author: Mr. You Yunting
Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Bridge IP Law Commentary
Partner & Attorney-at-law of Shanghai DeBund Law Offices
Email: Bridge@chinaiplawyer.com, Tel: 8621-5213-4900,
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Bridge IP Law Commentary is a website focus on the introduction of commercial laws in China, especially the intellectual property laws. All the posts here are our original works. And all news or cases referred here are from public reports, and our comments or analysis are of due diligence, neutrality and impartiality, representing our own opinions only and are our original works. You may contact us shall you have any opinions or suggestions.


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