4 accused of illegally copying popular online game

Prosecutors have filed a case against four people accused of illegally profiting 1.78 million yuan (US$256,000) from copy of a popular online game.

The four, including alleged ringleader Zhang, will go on trial for infringement of copyright, Minhang District People’s Procuratorate said on Tuesday

In August 2017, they managed to obtain the source code of Legend of Mir2, a popular online role-playing game, without the approval from the game’s  South Korean developer or its operator in the Chinese mainland, prosecutors said.

Based on the source code, they programmed two new games in August 2017 and February 2018. The two pirated games had very similar story lines and played the same as Legend of Mir2, prosecutors said.

The game the offered much cheaper allowing the company to poach many  Legend of Mir2n players and caused huge loss to the game’s operator, prosecutors said.

So far this year, Minhang prosecutors have filed 60 IPR cases, 15.4 percent more than the same period last year.