For some time, there has been a dispute between the Chinese firm Moonton and Riot Games/Tencent over copyright. Now Moonton accuses League of Legends of violating the copyright of their mobile game.
This is the dispute: Moonton and Riot have already been involved in several legal disputes over Mobile Legends: Bang Bang in the past.
- Riot Games accused Moonton in 2017 of copying the “League of Legends” brand with their game “Mobile Legends”
- In May 2022, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang”, accusing the MOBA of copying elements from League of Legends: Wild Rift
Which games are involved exactly? Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a MOBA developed by the Chinese studio Moonton and was released in 2016 for mobile devices. In Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, you play classic MOBA matches in 5 against 5. The focus is genre-typical on teamwork and strategy.
On the other hand, there is the worldwide success League of Legends by Riot Games, which includes League of Legends: Wild Rift. The latter is a shortened and mobile-optimized version of the popular PC counterpart and esports giant.
What is the latest legal dispute about? After Riot Games and Tencent previously accused Mobile Legends: Bang Bang of violating the copyright of their own IP, Moonton is now turning the tables.
As reported by the South China Morning Post, the Shanghai-based company claims Tencent is violating the rights of authorship, reproduction, and communication of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Riot Games, developer of League of Legends, has been a subsidiary of Tencent since 2015.
The recent development that Moonton is now accusing Tencent of copyright infringement arose, according to the South China Morning Post, from a timeline set by the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court.
The timeline of the Shanghai court states that Tencent must defend itself against the allegations in court as of Tuesday, November 29.
The company behind TikTok enters the gaming market
What does the company behind TikTok have to do with this? The company behind the successful social media app TikTok is called ByteDance, a Chinese internet technology company. It has been known since 2020 that ByteDance wants to make MMOs.
In 2021, ByteDance then purchased Moonton, the studio that developed Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, for 4 billion US dollars.
A survival shooter called Earth Rival is already in development by Nuverse, a studio from ByteDance.
The company behind TikTok reveals a new, major survival shooter that mixes No Man’s Sky and Destiny
