Filtering
content ahead of time to gain a few minutes of attention on the internet can be
excessively expensive, and this case is the ultimate test. A court in China has
issued the final ruling in the lawsuit against a former Genshin Impact
tester, who will have to pay developer miHoYo a whopping $70,000 for
breaking its confidentiality agreement and leaking private material from the
game.
The legal
conflict began as a result of the massive leak of content belonging to version
4.4 of the title, which included confidential images of several characters,
objects and unpublished events. During a private face-to-face test, the subject
identified only by his surname Jin took photographs of the material directly
with his cell phone, completely ignoring the signed contract that explicitly
prohibited saving, copying, or disseminating any kind of information.
The images
were then sent to the administrator of a foreign Telegram channel known as
Chalice_Leaks, a platform from which the files were spread across the internet
before the channel was permanently shut down. After a first ruling in favor of
the company, the defendant decided to appeal the sentence, but the court of
second instance upheld the original verdict by confirming that the leaked
information constituted improperly obtained trade secrets.
The most
unusual thing about the case is that the chat records presented during the
trial showed that Jin himself was aware of the consequences of his actions,
expressly mentioning the $70,000 penalty set in the confidentiality contract.
While the economic sentence remains firm for the leaker, the authorities continue
the corresponding legal proceedings against the administrator of the channel
that disseminated the material.
Genshin
Impact is a
successful open-world action role-playing video game developed by miHoYo,
originally released in September 2020. Available on mobile platforms, consoles
and PC, the installment has positioned itself as one of the most profitable
titles in the industry thanks to its constant content updates, its exploration
system and an extensive catalog of characters with magical elements.
