(By You Yunting) Recently, Chinese media reported that the video game developer miHoYo had filed a criminal complaint that someone cracked its game testing client and leaked unreleased character designs online. Following a criminal investigation, the police detained the suspects and determined to prosecute them for the crime of copyright infringement, as the unauthorised disclosure not only infringed miHoYo’s copyrights but also satisfied the statutory threshold for criminal prosecution due to the substantial volume of online views. From the perspective of protecting corporate rights and combating online infringement, the prompt intervention of the police is understandable. However, from the standpoint of the principle of modesty and the principle of legality, it is worth examining whether this case is appropriate for criminal prosecution. In the author’s view, such an act is better addressed through civil remedies rather than criminal proceedings.
If this case is prosecuted for criminal copyright infringement, there is a significant risk that the causation between the alleged act and the resulting harm would be too weak, potentially conflicting with the principle of modesty and the principle of legality. What, then, is “causation” in criminal law? Simply put, to hold people criminally liable for the result of damage, it must first be established that their actions are the direct cause of that result. In criminal copyright infringement cases, the infringing conduct must bear a clear cause-and-effect relationship with the specific harm to copyright.
To illustrate this point, we may first consider a contrasting case involving miHoYo. In that case, two defendants established and operated unauthorized private servers for the game Genshin Impact, through which they reaped illegal gains from in-game purchases. Following the police investigation and subsequent prosecution, in October 2025, the defendants were convicted of criminal copyright infringement. In that case, the defendants’ operation of private servers directly harmed the market value of miHoYo’s game because the private servers obviated the need for players to spend money on the official version. This created a clear market substitution effect, establishing an undeniable causation between the defendants’ conduct and the loss of miHoYo’s copyright revenue.
However, the present leak incident stands in stark contrast, because the causation between posting unreleased images and the specific damages of criminal copyright infringement is too weak. While character designs are protected as copyrighted works of art, simply posting unreleased images online does technically infringe upon miHoYo’s copyright, the reality is that this unreleased information is destined for public disclosure upon the game’s official launch. Therefore, the leaked content does not create the same market-substitution effect as the private server.
Losses in criminal copyright infringement cases usually manifest as substitutional damage to the market value of the work. For example, in the Genshin Impact private server case mentioned above, users who accessed the infringing service reduced their consumption of the legitimate version. In the present case, however, the early exposure of character designs—regardless of whether players’ reactions are positive or negative—does not create the same direct market substitution effect as the operation of private servers.
MiHoYo’s actual loss is different in nature. The early disclosure of unreleased game content undermines the commercial confidentiality of the development process, diminishes the surprise and anticipation of the market surrounding new content, disrupts planned marketing strategies, and may even allow competitors to gain early insights into development information. In other words, the suspects’ acts primarily harm miHoYo’s confidentiality and strategic business interests in game development, rather than the copyright in the character designs themselves. As discussed above, the primary damage of early disclosing unreleased game content is largely unrelated to copyright infringement.
Admittedly, prosecuting the suspects for the crime of infringing trade secrets in this case will also face practical difficulties. Based on current media reports, it is unclear whether the suspects obtained the testing client from miHoYo with confidentiality agreements, or the client was first leaked online by others and later obtained by the suspects. Either scenario faces legal obstacles for criminal prosecution for the crime of infringing trade secrets.
If the suspects had signed confidentiality agreements with miHoYo, their acts of cracking the testing client would clearly violate the agreement. In that situation, miHoYo could file a civil action or a criminal report for breach of contract. However, a criminal prosecution for infringing trade secrets generally requires proof of losses exceeding RMB 300,000. Quantifying and proving such losses in the context of player leaks is difficult.
If the suspects obtained the testing client from public sources online, it would be even more difficult for miHoYo to pursue a claim for protection of trade secrets because judicial interpretations of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, as well as the Provisions on the Protection of Trade Secrets issued in February 2026 by the State Administration for Market Regulation, make clear that obtaining technical information through reverse engineering, such as disassembling, surveying, or analyzing, of the product obtained through public channels generally does not constitute trade secret infringement.
From an industry perspective, the reverse engineering of game clients and the early disclosure of unreleased content are common challenges faced by the entire gaming industry. For example, several high-profile games like Black Myth: Wukong and Cyberpunk 2077 have also experienced large-scale leaks of internal materials. The underlying reason is that there exist inherent technical limitations on the game companies’ security management of testing clients and internal confidential information. Once the software is distributed to external users, the technical barriers protecting confidential content are effectively lowered.
If conducts such as reverse engineering publicly distributed software are routinely prosecuted under criminal law, it will not only create difficulties in legal interpretation but may also raise concerns about over-criminalization. At present, the criminal threshold for copyright infringement in China is relatively low. According to the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Intellectual Property Infringement, disseminating others’ works, audio-visual products, or performances to the public through information networks may constitute a crime once the corresponding webpage receives 100,000 views. In other words, if the suspects in the present case are successfully convicted of criminal copyright infringement, those who leak or “spoil” content from popular games may easily face criminal liability in the future.
Finally, while the leak of unreleased game content undoubtedly harms a game company’s commercial interests, the degree and nature of such harm must be evaluated with extreme caution before triggering criminal prosecution. Widely criminalizing such acts can create a chilling effect on game security research and legitimate activities of technical communities. If game companies wish to protect their interests in such circumstances, civil litigation is a more appropriate approach, strongly supported by current judicial practice.
Among the Typical Intellectual Property Cases released by the Supreme People’s Court of China in 2024 was a case brought by miHoYo against a player who participated in the confidential closed beta test of the game Honkai: Star Rail and leaked test content. In that case, the player, ignoring the confidentiality agreement, secretly photographed and recorded the test gameplay and disseminated unreleased content online. The court ultimately ordered the player to pay RMB 500,000 in damages. This case demonstrates the judiciary’s stance toward such disputes. Although the case discussed herein may not constitute criminal copyright infringement, if miHoYo were to pursue civil litigation for copyright infringement, the court would be believed to make a judgement of infringement and award reasonable damages.
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