The police in Wuyi, Zhejiang, China recently uncovered the country’s first new type of intellectual property rights case using the foreign game publishing platform Steam to commit infringements, and arrested criminal gangs in one fell swoop, effectively cracking down on online illegal and criminal activities, maintaining market competition order and corporate intellectual property legality rights and interests.
With the development of network technology, new models of infringement emerge one after another
The Network Security Brigade of Wuyi County Public Security Bureau in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province received a report from a subsidiary of the company Gbit & Thunder Games in its jurisdiction on March 4, 2021, stating that it found a store on a certain platform to sell its games abroad at very low prices the “Ghost Valley and Eight Desolation” games operated by the platform severely disrupted the market order, and the company suffered heavy economic losses as a result.
Steam is currently one of the world’s largest comprehensive digital distribution platforms. The online game involved is on the Steam platform. Registered users of the platform can purchase the game on the platform and download and install it to a local computer to run offline. The criminal suspect used the Steam platform to set the number of downloads unrestricted, and sold his Steam accounts obtained in various ways for profit. Other players could copy the games involved in the case to the local infinitely, and the sales volume reached more than 20,000.
Unlike previous infringement models such as setting up private servers, selling cracked versions, and selling game plug-ins, the suspect in this case illegally spread the online games involved in the case by directly selling foreign game platform accounts.
Close scouting and capture in one fell swoop
After careful investigation by the Wuyi police, it was discovered that the shop currently sells nearly a hundred games on Steam, with sales prices ranging from 0.98 yuan to nearly one hundred yuan. The prices of these games on the Steam platform range from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan. The police followed the line and dug and investigated and found that the case was a gang crime, and the gang operated multiple stores selling infringing copies on multiple well-known e-commerce platforms at the same time, and the amount involved was huge. On April 25, 2021, the Wuyi police arrested the gang in a unified manner, and wiped out all the members of the gang. After interrogation, the criminal suspect confessed to the criminal facts of the infringement. Currently, the case is under further investigation.
Protect intellectual property rights and maintain market order
With the continuous development of information technology, there are endless patterns of online game infringement. For a long time, online game intellectual property cases have focused on cracking down on behaviors that seriously endanger the healthy ecology of games, such as private servers, cracking, and plug-ins. This time, in the form of selling foreign game platform Steam accounts, the new infringement model of illegally disseminating the games involved is the first in China. Gigabit & Thunder Games respects the intellectual property rights of others and resolutely safeguards its own legal rights. Severe measures will be taken to combat any infringement of their own intellectual property rights. The successful detection of this case once again demonstrates the determination of Gigabit & Thunder Games to combat infringement. Gigabit & Thunder Games will always be committed to maintaining a fair game environment and market order, and promoting the healthy development of the game industry in China.
Source: China Economic Weekly