Chinanews.com, Shanghai, March 2 (Li Shuzheng, Cao Yunxian) The game power leveling platform bypasses the "anti-addiction" mechanism, encourages users including minors to participate in commercial power leveling, and allows minors to bypass layers of supervision to achieve " Freedom to play".
The reporter learned from the Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court (hereinafter referred to as the Pudong Court) on the 2nd that the Pudong Court recently made a judgment on this unfair competition dispute case of undermining the "anti-addiction" mechanism for minors and organizing commercial power leveling.
Tencent Chengdu is the copyright owner of "Glory of the King" and has authorized Shenzhen Tencent to operate it exclusively.
"Glory of the King" has a fair matching mechanism and a complete "anti-addiction" mechanism. Minors can only play games within a specified time period. The game service agreement also stipulates that users are not allowed to use their accounts for commercial purposes such as leveling .
However, the two companies discovered that the "power leveling gang" client operated by Beisheng company lured and encouraged users, including minors, to commercialize and scale up through its platform in the form of "issuing bills and returning cash" and setting up special areas. The game power leveling transaction, so the lawsuit was brought to the Shanghai Pudong Court.
The two plaintiffs believed that the behavior of Beisheng Company hindered the normal development of the game business, caused damage to themselves, game users and social public interests, and constituted unfair competition. They demanded that Beisheng Company immediately stop the above-mentioned behavior and compensate for economic losses, etc. A total of 4.5 million yuan.
Beisheng Company argued that game power leveling and game services are not in the same field. Game power leveling is equivalent to game accompanying play, which is a service in nature and does not constitute unfair competition. Game power leveling enhances the game user experience and does not cause losses to the plaintiff. On the contrary, it increased traffic and user stickiness to the plaintiff, and Beisheng Company did not profit from the operation involved in the case, so it requested to dismiss all the plaintiff's claims.
After the trial, the court held that the defendant provided commercial power leveling transactions for the users of the two plaintiffs, and used its business activities and user groups as the basic resources of its own operations. This behavior itself has the nature of market competition.
In this case, the behavior of Beisheng Company disrupted the order of market competition and caused three damages: first, it destroyed the game mechanism of fair competition, and damaged user experience and legitimate rights and interests; second, it interfered with the real-name mechanism established by the game and minors The "anti-addiction" mechanism has damaged the commercial interests of the two plaintiffs; third, it has increased the risk of minors being addicted to the Internet and violated social and public interests.
At the same time, Beisheng Company used the games with competing rights and interests of the two plaintiffs as a profit-making tool, which violated the principle of good faith and business ethics. The effects of the defendant's conduct could not be neutralized by appropriate technical means.
To sum up, the court found that Beisheng Company’s provision of commercial online game leveling services constituted unfair competition, ordered the suspension immediately, and compensated the two plaintiffs for economic losses of 800,000 yuan (RMB, the same below) and 185,000 yuan of reasonable expenses for rights protection.
In August 2021, the National Press and Publication Administration issued the "Notice on Further Strictly Managing and Effectively Preventing Minors from Indulging in Online Games", which clearly requires that all online game companies can only provide game services to minors within a specified period of time.
However, a small number of account rental and power leveling platforms continue to create convenience for minors to obtain adult game accounts, which has become a loophole in the "Great Wall" of anti-addiction.
Previously, the court had issued a pre-trial injunction in this case to protect the rights and interests of minors in a timely manner.
The presiding judge of this case, Judge Yuan Tian of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the People's Court of Pudong New District, Shanghai, said that this judgment once again sounded the alarm for such enterprises.
"The development of the Internet depends on free competition and technological innovation, but it must be bounded by not interfering with other people's legitimate business models, let alone at the expense of endangering the healthy growth of minors and sacrificing public interests." Yuan Tian said, in the long run, " "Anti-addiction" requires the joint efforts of schools, families and other parties to jointly support the "protective umbrella" of the Internet environment for children.
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