NetEase has received a plagiarism lawsuit towards the producers of the movie Soul Gods League of Masters, with the defendant being ordered to pay 300 thousand yuan ($41.5k) in compensation.
The swimsuit alleges that there have been vital similarities between the movie and the NetEase recreation Onmyoji. All compensation awarded to NetEase shall be donated to animal welfare charities.
The alleged similarities embody similarities between a number of characters, together with total form and color scheme, in addition to using “soul gods” within the movie’s promotion. In an announcement of apology launched following the ruling, the defendant said that these similarities arose “because of the lack of rigorous evaluate.”
Card battler Onmyoji was first launched in 2016, with Soul Gods League of Masters first being launched in 2020. NetEase first turned conscious of the similarities between the titles quickly earlier than launch, and shortly launched the lawsuit.
Onmyoji relies on the favored anime of the identical identify. It shortly emerged as a powerful performer in NetEase’s portfolio, nevertheless it misplaced some traction afterward. This did little to hamper NetEase’s confidence within the title, who started work on a live-action movie adaptation of the sport in 2018, which was launched in 2021 beneath the title The Yinyang Grasp. It’s attainable, due to this fact, that NetEase feared that Soul Gods League of Masters might appeal to consideration away from its personal makes an attempt to adapt the sport.
Though the courtroom has discovered that NetEase’s IP rights had been infringed upon on this case, it’s value noting that the corporate itself has confronted a number of accusations of copyright infringement in recent times. Pop star Jay Chou launched his personal swimsuit towards the gaming large earlier this yr. The corporate additionally misplaced one other lawsuit filed by Riot in December, who accused NetEase of plagiarism as a result of similarities between Valorant and the NetEase title Hyper Entrance.
We listed NetEase as one of many prime 50 cell recreation makers of 2022.
