A Chinese company is suing the developer behind one of the world’s biggest games over a claim that the World of Warcraft (WoW) game used its fonts without permission. The suit could be worth $13.2 million.
Fonts are pieces of software that need to be licensed, and font piracy is one of the lesser known forms of intellectual property infringement.
China’s Founder Electronics is suing WoW publisher Blizzard Entertainment in a Bejing court over its alleged use of its fonts in the game. The company said that five Chinese language fonts were used in the Chinese version of the game, which was launched in 2005.
WoW is a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), and Blizzard says that it has nine million players across the world. Founder says that 3.5 million of those are in China.
Founder said that it had lost one billion yuan, or $132 million, through the alleged unauthorised use of its fonts. It is claiming one tenth of that in its suit, said a company statement.
Founder says it is the largest provider of Chinese language fonts in the country. Blizzard is a unit of French media company Vivendi Universal.
The case will be heard in the Bejing Municipal Higher People’s Court.
Font misuse is a common but rarely discussed form of software piracy. Software piracy lobby group the Business Software Alliance (BSA) says that the average computer has 300 unlicensed fonts on it.
Copyright © 2007, OUT-LAW.com
OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons.
Mini Tauren Says: “Chinese company suing over copyright infringement very ironic, yes?”
How about they get their $13.2 million in restitution for lost profits, and in return China pays back the estimated $2.5 BILLION in lost US sales due to Chinese copyright infringement. Deal?
Hmmm… a bit odd, but ok. So many bizarre things happening in the MMO world lately. Maybe I’m not understanding the situation correctly, but I didn’t know you could sue someone over using a language in a game.
Ridiculous? I’d say so.
Denxan on 08 16th, 2007
Denxan, it’s not the language it’s the very shape of the characters which have been designed by someone, like Arial or Times New Roman with our alphabet.
Exodere on 08 17th, 2007
I’m guessing the letters in question are the ones saying “(The) Burning Crusade” and sure I see their point… there has been quite a few copys of the games sold in China I’m sure and if the company that owns the font were to get paid for use in each copy they have sure lost a lot of money now… I guess that’s how they have calculated the loss, otherwise I’m not sure I understand.
I still say it’s hard to prove that it wasn’t just a case of similar thinking in the design. There are no proofs that Blizzard just found the font and used it, or is there? It could be as simple as that they happened to design that font themselves and that it turned out to be similar to the existing one. I’d like to see a comparison between the letters in both fonts.
And even if it really is the same exact font perhaps Blizzard got it from a free font site where someone had uploaded the not actually free font for everyone to use. It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened I’m sure.
I don’t know how the legal system works in China but I’d say it should be hard to tell who was really in the wrong here… If it turns out that the font really belongs to that company but Blizzard can prove that they didn’t knowingly use it illegally, what’s would happen exactly?
Lone on 08 18th, 2007
Look, nothing but blizzard supporters spilling their beans.
You have no idea of the situation and here you are saying “blizz couldn’t have done such a thing.”
you fail. 1/10
Jean'erre on 08 21st, 2007
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Categories
Action Adventure Beta Demos DungeonRun Editorial First-person Shooter Flash General Hardware Independent MMORPG Multiplayer Patches Puzzle Racing Real-time Strategy Review Role-playing Game Simulation Site Update Snippets Space Sim Sports Technology Turn-based Strategy Video
Screenshot
Sponsors
Current MMO's
Future MMO's
Gaming Blogs
MMO Blogs