China News Service, Wenzhou, April 26 (Fan Yubin Ouwen) "Legend of Blood" is a world-renowned large-scale online game, which is sought after by countless game lovers.

On the 26th, the reporter learned that Liu, Xu, and others set up "private servers" (private network servers) of "Legend of Blood" without the permission of the copyright owner for players to play games, with an illegal business volume of more than 15 million yuan.

  It is reported that after a public prosecution by the People's Procuratorate of Ouhai District, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the court sentenced the defendant Liu to three years in prison, suspended for five years, and fined 1.2 million yuan for the crime of copyright infringement; sentenced the defendant Xu to fixed-term imprisonment. Three years, five years of probation, and a fine of 1.2 million yuan.

  Team up and open the server to "be the boss", the division of labor is clear and the benefits are abundant

  Liu Mou is a veteran player of "Legend of Blood". At the end of 2015, he and Xu Moumou and Liu Moumou (fleeing), whom he met in the game, jointly opened a "game private server" to make money.

They collected the "Legend of Blood" game client from the Internet, and by modifying the game script, they successively made different versions of the "Sun and Moon Strike" game, and put them on the website for players to download. The private network server of the company makes profits by selling "game ingots" to players and collecting players' trading deposits.

  The division of labor among the three is clear, and dividends are distributed according to shares.

Liu is responsible for the overall technical support, accounting for 40% of the shares; Xu is responsible for the daily operation of private game servers, accounting for 40% of the shares; Liu is responsible for game promotion, accounting for 20% of the shares.

During the period, the three also hired four people including Li Moumou to serve as customer service staff with a monthly salary of four to five thousand yuan, responsible for recharge, guarantee, supervision and other work.

From January 2016 to April 2020, when the incident occurred, the team's illegal business amounted to more than 15 million yuan through the operation of "private servers".

  According to the appraisal by the Copyright Appraisal Committee of the China Copyright Protection Center, the game "Sun and Moon" and "Legend of Blood" are substantially similar in terms of characters, game maps, game equipment, skills, monsters, etc.

  Prosecutors carefully review multiple contacts to inform rights holders

  After the Ouhai District People's Procuratorate accepted the case, it undertook the prosecutor to work overtime to review the case file, compare and check thousands of electronic data items such as bank transaction flow, WeChat and Alipay transaction flow in the case file, and list detailed supplementary investigations. outline.

  In order to solve the technical difficulties in the identification of the case and accurately calculate the amount of illegal business, the prosecutor deeply studied the relevant knowledge of game development and operation.

  In addition, there are difficulties in determining the right holder.

The copyright owner of "Legend of Blood" is in South Korea, and the copyright is jointly owned by multiple rights holders. The copyright ownership, licensing and related authorization issues are complicated.

  In order to inform the rights holders to exercise their procedural rights as soon as possible, the Ouhai District People's Procuratorate strictly follows the High Procuratorate's "Work Plan for Notification of Rights Holders' Litigation Rights and Obligations in Criminal Cases of Intellectual Property Infringement" by the People's Procuratorate. A number of rights holders negotiated and finally identified a qualified right holder to contact and communicate with the procuratorate, laying a foundation for the follow-up work and effectively protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the rights holder.

  Actively promote criminal reconciliation and jointly combat piracy

  The criminal suspect in this case has been committing the crime for more than three years, and the illegal business amount has reached more than 15 million yuan. In order to recover the economic losses of the right holder in time, the Ouhai District People's Procuratorate used the platform of the intellectual property mediation room to conduct investigations on the criminal suspect many times during the process of the case. Interpreting the law and reasoning, the criminal reconciliation between the two parties was actively promoted through communication and docking, and finally the family of the criminal suspect compensated the copyright owner of 1.5 million yuan, and obtained the understanding of the right owner.

  The prosecutor said: "'Public game server' is a pirated online game, and its essence is an act of copyright infringement. At present, 'Public Game Server' has formed a complete underground industry chain, including private server development, agency, management and 'One-stop service' for publishing, promoting, and providing payment platforms, etc."

  Pirated games not only infringe the legitimate rights and interests of copyright owners, but also may seriously damage the physical and mental health of game participants, especially young people.

  In order to enhance the excitement of the game and gain greater economic benefits, criminal suspects often modify game scripts and game rules without restrictions, making it easier for players to indulge in it. The game platform will even breed the network due to the lack of effective supervision. Gambling, Internet pornography and other illegal activities.

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