Hello everyone, this is the positive shock game, I am the positive shock little brother.
"Legend" is a unique existence in the history of Chinese online games, and it can be said that it has influenced a generation of Chinese players. Although the influence of "Legend" is so great, because of the intricate copyright issues of the game, it has directly created the longest-lasting copyright dispute in the history of China's game industry and the largest amount of related interests.
On December 24, 2021, the Supreme Court of China made a final judgment that the renewal agreement signed by Lansha Information, a subsidiary of Shengqu Games (formerly Shanda Games, hereinafter written as "Shanda" for convenience of reading), and Atox is legal and valid, that is, Shanda Games enjoys the exclusive authorization of "Legends" games in Chinese mainland.
In addition, the Supreme Court also found that the introduction of a new authorization subject by Yude has infringed on the legitimate rights and interests of Attox, and the reason for Attox to prevent Yude from adding a new authorization is justified, that is, the IP of Yude's chaotic authorization in China may end.
So, when it comes to the copyright dispute that has lasted the longest in the history of China's game industry and has the largest amount of relevant interests, what has "Legend" experienced in recent years?
The relationship between Shanda, Yatoshi, Entertainment Virtue and "Legend" of that year was really cut and chaotic.
In 2000, the grand Chen Tianqiao failed to start a business and decided to gamble, so he bought the agency rights of the unsought-after "Legend" from Atoshi with only $300,000 in cash, not wanting this game that had failed in South Korea to be on fire in China, and the fire was a mess!
"Legend" only took 4 months, it became the world's first online game with an average online number, and set a record of 800,000 online users in the era when personal computers were not yet popular, to know that in 2006, the highest number of online users of the domestic online game overlord "World of Warcraft" was only 630,000, and Shanda equipped the game with more than 4,000 servers in order to resist this terrible number of users.
The popularity of "Legend" made Shanda once occupy more than 60% of the market share of domestic online games, becoming the strongest network company in China at that time! When the younger brother entered the Internet café, it can be said that everyone is playing "Legend"!
But making too much money doesn't necessarily bring all the good things. The huge interests also made the cooperation between Shanda, Yatoshi, and Entertainment Virtues in crisis.
Because "Legend" was not produced by Yatoshi, but developed by the original Yatuoshi holding company Yude, the fledgling Yude also handed over the agency distribution rights of "Legend of Blood" to Yatuoshi, who had experience in online game operation, and agreed that both parties would jointly enjoy the copyright of the game. Although Shanda asked Atos for the license of the game, it left many loopholes in the contract, which left a curse for the endless ridicule later.
Later, in 2002, the developer Yu Virtue faced this huge profit and planned to prepare a major upgrade of the game: Legend of Mir3, which was translated as Legend of Mir3, and the Chinese translated as Legend 2.0. In the face of this kind of gold mine, Sheng Nature hopes to extend the operation agency rights of "Legend" and give priority to the upgraded version of "Legend 2.0" that will be developed soon.
However, Yude can only get a small amount of money from the agent Yatuoshi, and naturally is not willing to continue to make less money, and wants to bypass the agent Yatuoshi to directly find a Chinese company to sign an agent. However, Shanda did not agree, and also informed Yatoshi of this matter, and from then on, Yu virtue began to hate Shanda.
Later, when Shanda asked Yu virtue to provide technical support for Legend, their attitude was very unactive. In this case, Shanda also played a careful mind - refusing to provide specific player data information to the Korean side, so that the Korean side could not know the real income of the game, which made Atoshi also very unhappy.
On January 24, 2002, Atox unilaterally announced the termination of Shanda Legends' operating rights in Chinese mainland on the grounds that Shanda owed tens of millions of dollars in points. At this time, if "Legend" is discontinued, Shanda, Attos, and Entertainment Virtue will all face hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
Although the three parties are very unhappy, but for the sake of money, the three parties still sit at the negotiating table, Shanda requires the Korean side to provide technical support to deal with the plug-in problem, Shanda has the priority operation agency right of the "Legend" version 2.0, the Korean side requires Shanda to pay the arrears of the share, the Korean side has the right to view the game's charging system and so on.
You think this is the end? What an easy place! Not long after the cooperation between the three parties, because Yude suspected that the data given by the Grand Charging System was untrue, China and South Korea quarreled again.
Just when China and south Korea were still arguing over the "sharing of the spoils," a major incident occurred. In September 2002, the "Legend" server program leaked out from the Italian agent, and in late November, the "Legend" 2.0 version of the national service was not yet launched also appeared in the private server version, and the private service incident made the Chinese and South Koreans completely tear their faces, and the contract had already existed in name only.
Here the little brother incidentally debunked a rumor, when "Legend" leaked not the source program, but the server program, and later a domestic studio called Lingfeng rebuilt the source code through reverse engineering, which had the source code of "Legend".
In January 2003, the Korean side, which was determined to terminate the contract, announced the termination of the contract and Shanda ceased to cooperate, and Shanda filed an arbitration with the Singapore International Court of Justice, delaying the period for the breakdown of the cooperation, during which the two sides continued to bargain.
Although the private server seriously damaged shanda's interests, it also increased the bargaining chips between shanda and the Korean side, and Shanda asked the Korean side to reduce the agency fee, deal with the private server problem, and determine the authorization contract of the "Legend" version 2.0. The Korean side believes that it is not their responsibility to deal with the private server problem, and will talk about it slowly after the 2.0 version of "Legend".
Shanda saw that the Korean side had no fear of pressing forward, relying on his own compilation and decompilation efforts, on February 17, he released the killer weapon - the replacement of "Legend" "New Legend" exposed (that is, the later "Legend World")!
Shanda claimed that it can continue the information of the players of "Legend" to "New Legend", and with the spare tire of "New Legend", Shanda has the confidence to negotiate with the Korean side. If the Korean side really comes to a fish death net to break, forcibly replace the domestic agent, that is just to take away an empty shell, the user information is still in Shanda's hands, Shanda can easily transfer the user to the world, then the Korean side does not even drink soup.
The entertainment virtue side also released a big move, suddenly announcing that the unknown Guangtong had obtained the agency rights Chinese mainland "Legend 3" and Hong Kong and Macao. Entertainment virtue also released harsh words at the same time, "Legend 3" is the legendary orthodoxy, the grand "Legend" is plagiarism, and Shanda dares to go online he dares to sue.
I have to say that "Legend 3" does have a lot of lethality to the grand "Legend", "Legend 3" has gained 300,000 users in 4 months of going online, and the server has reached 134 groups.
Perhaps realizing that both Shanda and Entertainment Virtue could abandon themselves by relying on their own new games and earning their own gold, Atoshi finally chose to sit at the negotiating table with Shanda again. And just as Shanda and Atos were wrestling at the negotiating table, "Legendary World" was officially released in July of that year.
At this time, there were three "legendary" games on the market, the grand "Legend", "Legendary World", and Guangtong's "Legend 3". And under the overwhelming publicity and resource tilt, the highest online of "Legend World" in September rose to 300,000 at the same time, which is equal to "Legend 3", which can be said to be angry with entertainment virtues!
At this point, after weighing it, Atox simply secretly reconciled with Shanda on August 18, and at the same time gave "Legend" a 2-year contract, and the agency fee rose from $300,000 to $4 million, making a lot of money.
After making money, Atox began to face various and thin mud lawsuits filed by subsequent entertainment virtues against the plagiarism of Shanda's "Legendary World" gameplay. However, YuDeide had to launch a litigation war with Yatuoshi and Shanda in China and South Korea at the same time, and the pressure was instantly filled. Finally, on April 29, 2004, yumede and Yatoshi mediated in the Seoul court to reach a settlement, and confirmed the reality that "Legend of Blood" returned to Shanda and "Legend 3" returned to Guangtong.
Although Shanda completed the renewal of "Legend", but this is not a long-term solution, Shanda spent $91.7 million to quietly buy shares of Attox through the secondary market in order to settle once and for all, and finally became the majority shareholder of Attox with 29% of the shares in 2004. Shanda's shareholding rose to 51% in 2007, and since then Atox has become a subsidiary of Shanda.
However, it is a pity that Shanda is still a step slower, although the relationship between Shanda and Yude has eased somewhat, but by 2007, Yude has long been independent and is no longer a subsidiary of Atox, leaving Shanda with endless troubles.
With the decline of Shanda's victory over Yatuoshi and "Legend" in domestic online games, the friction between Shanda, Yatuoshi, and entertainment virtue has also decreased, after all, the game has not made a few dollars, and there is no need to toss it with a lot of trouble.
In February 2007, Shanda Department and Entertainment Virtue reached a key settlement agreement, and "Legendary World" and "Legendary Legend" and "Legend 3" will no longer have any relationship, temporarily calming the storm. Subsequently, "Legend 3" continued to have problems under the agency of Guangtong, and Shanda announced on January 9, 2009 that it had "regained" the agency rights of "Legend 3".
But there have been no quiet for a few years, with the rise of the page game and mobile game market, a new round of fighting is ready to start...
At that time, Entertainment Virtue did not have new works to hand, and the company's performance was very deformed, with the revenue of terminal games and mobile games in South Korea falling by 11% and 40% respectively month-on-month, while the revenue of mobile games from overseas soared by 533% month-on-month. Among them, the share fee of the grand "Legend" and "Blood Legend Mobile Version" is a big head.
Although the "Legend" end game declined, but in the page game regained a new life, the grand authorization of 37 Interactive Entertainment launched the legendary page game "Legend Hegemony" in 2014, which looks so simple that the page game can achieve a single-day maximum flow of 20 million!
37 Mutual Entertainment has a grand authorization, but there is no authorization of Entertainment Virtue, the two sides after several years of litigation, in 2016 37 Mutual Entertainment lost the lawsuit, in 2019 in the second instance 37 Mutual Entertainment lost again...
After seeing that the license made so much money, in 2015, Yudede sold the IP adaptation rights of the "Legend" page game to Shanghai Kaiying for about 170 million, and then Kaiying promoted it with the selling point of the genuine license, easily making the monthly flow of its "Blue Moon Legend" exceed 200 million! This "Legend of the Blue Moon" is the "Greedy Blue Moon" that the "scum wave" is playing.
The success of the game has caused Kaiying's market value to soar to 45.1 billion!
In 2016, Shanda, in the name of Yatuoshi, sued Yude and Kaiying for harming their rights and interests, and finally the cooperation between Entertainment Virtue and Kaiying was stopped.
In the years when the page game was popular, the entertainment virtue and grandeur plus a Yatuoshi could be said to be either on the way to being beaten by a lawsuit or a lawsuit.
Although Attox is already grand, in terms of process, Shanda still needs to find Atox to authorize the operation of "Legend" every once in a while.
With the arrival of 28 September 2017, the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, which had previously been involved in the LEGEND IP arbitration, declared the agreement signed by Shanda and Atos in 2017 to renew the contract of Legend. However, Shanda refused to recognize the arbitral court's judgment on the grounds that the arbitral court in Singapore had no right to interfere in the domestic situation.
In order to facilitate making money, in 2017, a new company was set up in the mainland to be responsible for licensing business, and soon Yude virtue licensed Time Technology at a price of 70 million, and then Time Technology launched the mobile game "The Most Legendary". Although Shanda was sentenced to lose "Legend" at this time, but Yatuoshi had it, and then the company was targeted by Yatuoshi before it made money, and in 2018, the court ruled that the contract between Entertainment Virtue and Time Technology was invalid.
In the following years, Yu virtue and Shanda continued to sue between various authorized agents...
What about this dispute? Very messy, very messy, quite messy!
However, fortunately, now with the final judgment of China's Supreme Court, the legitimate rights and interests of Sheng Qu Games for "Legend" have been determined, which also means that it will be difficult for Entertainment Virtue to authorize the IP of "Legend" at will in China. This 20-year-long legendary IP war may really end completely.
"Legend" was originally very promising to become a high-value golden IP in domestic online games, but the three parties have been fighting each other for their own interests for several years, and no one is really maintaining this IP, and finally "Legend" has become synonymous with the times rather than a golden signboard.
A positive question: Did you play the online game "Legends" back then?