Front-end employees used their positions to steal game resource packs, and after layers of resale, the game project was released online after another game company "changed skins". In order to avoid legal risks, they used fake game versions to promote the game by contacting platform users privately.
Before leaving, the senior developer of the game project used his authority to package and copy the completed project, and after reselling it layer by layer, the game project was released online after another game company "changed skin". In one year, the recharge amount of the "skin-changing" game reached more than 300 yuan...... On December 8, 2023, after the procuratorate of Guancheng Hui District, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province initiated a public prosecution, the court sentenced the defendants Ma, He, Liang and other 12 people to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from three years to one year and six months for copyright infringement, all of which were subject to suspended sentences and fines concurrently. Because the defendant Lin was a repeat offender, the court sentenced him to one year and two months in prison and a fine for copyright infringement. Lin appealed, and a few days ago, the court of second instance rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
Engineer at a game company steals resource packs before leaving his job
Wang Moujia is the legal representative of Zhengzhou Company A, acting as an agent for the distribution and operation of a number of popular online games, including an online game developed by Company B. In December 2021, when Wang Moujia browsed online, he found that an online game was highly similar to an online game developed by Company B, so he asked a game developer to study it, and finally confirmed that except for some differences, this online game is completely consistent with an online game developed by Company B in terms of pictures, sounds, rules, and gameplay, so he inferred that the other party may have mastered the complete resource package of the game. After Wang Moujia reported to the police, the Zhengzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau filed a case for investigation and took criminal coercive measures against a company in Guangzhou, the publisher, a company in Hainan, and related personnel in September 2022.
The victim's company in Zhengzhou has no direct intersection with a company far away in Guangzhou, so why did the game resource package, which is regarded as a core resource, fall into the hands of others? After digging deep and investigating carefully, the police found the initiator of the case, Cheng Mou, who used to work as a senior software engineer in Company B.
It turned out that in January 2019, Cheng joined Company B and was responsible for the front-end development of an online game, and had access to all game resources including front-end code, back-end code, and all art pictures. In October of the same year, Cheng used his position to enter the server and copy all the game resource packages to his personal network disk for saving. In January 2020, after Cheng resigned, he wanted to redevelop the copied game resource package, but because he couldn't find an investor for a long time, Cheng sold the game resource package to Wang Mouyi at a price of 10,000 yuan under the introduction of his friend Yue, and the latter two each got 5,000 yuan. In June 2021, Wang Mouyi sold the game resource package to Zhang at a price of 8,000 yuan, and Zhang sold it to Ma, the legal representative of a company in Guangzhou, at a price of 8,000 yuan.
The game "skin" is online to "attract gold"
In order to remodel the game and not attract the attention of the copyright company, Ma arranged for the company's employees Xie X, Qiu, Liang and Lin to carry out "secondary development" of the game, modify the scene and picture of the game as much as possible on the basis of the original framework of the game, redesign the game characters and props, and rename the game after the "skin". Among them, Xie is responsible for modifying game scenes, characters, etc., Qiu is responsible for operation and maintenance of game feedback problems, Liang is responsible for front-end technology development and maintenance, and Lin is responsible for back-end technology development and maintenance. In addition, Ma also contacted a company in Hainan that specializes in game promotion business to seek promotion support.
Although it has been learned in the preliminary communication that the above-mentioned "skin-changing" game has an irregular source and no relevant certificate documents, He Mou, a shareholder of a company in Hainan, still decided to "seek wealth and risk" and promote the game online. In order to avoid legal risks, they used fake game versions to promote the game by contacting platform users privately.
Under the publicity and promotion of a company in Hainan, the game that was secretly launched attracted many players. From August 2021 to September 2022, a total of 829 people recharged the game, with 8,264 recharges and a recharge amount of more than 300 yuan. After deducting promotion and operating costs, a company in Guangzhou shared a profit of more than 40 yuan, and a company in Hainan shared a profit of more than 200 yuan.
Thirteen people were sentenced
After Cheng and 13 other suspects arrived at the case, the appraisal agency conducted a detailed analysis of the two games. After identification, the total number of extracted original game resource files is 2195, the total number of infringing game resource files is 2350, and the number of identical and similar resource files accounts for 63.74% of the total number of original games and 60.98% of the total number of infringing games.
In the face of the evidence, the criminal suspects who played a leading role in the case, such as Ma and He, all confessed to the crime and were willing to admit guilt and accept punishment, but Xie and Qiu were unwilling to admit guilt and accept punishment as part of the company employees who undertook the development and design tasks in the "skin changing" work. After arriving at the case, Xie Mou, Qiu Mou and others insisted that they were only carrying out the boss's orders, and they were not clear about the source of the game and should not bear legal responsibility.
In order to clarify the facts of the case and clarify responsibilities, the Guancheng Hui District Procuratorate invited staff from the cultural law enforcement department to participate in the handling of the case as an assistant to the specially invited procurator, and provide professional support for relevant judicial identification work. After research and judgment, the court held that the above-mentioned employees were all professionals in the field of game development, and they would have noticed that the game did not have a software copyright certificate or game version number in the early stage of the game architecture and later operation and maintenance, and that it was not a game project developed by the company, but a "disguise" of an illegally sourced project, so they subjectively had the intention of infringing copyright and were suspected of the crime of copyright infringement.
After the procurator patiently laid out the evidence and reasoned, Xie X, Qiu X and others finally voluntarily pleaded guilty and accepted punishment. All the persons involved in the case actively compensated the copyright owner for their losses and obtained the copyright owner's understanding. The procuratorate of the Hui District of Jingcheng initiated a public prosecution, and after trial, the court adopted the procuratorate's accusations and sentencing opinions and made the above judgment.
Source: Supreme People's Procuratorate
Editor: Sharon