The current world champion in League of Legends is FunPlus Phoenix, a team from China. They have now announced they will take legal action because content from their players was inaccurately translated on reddit and YouTube. This harms the brand.
This is the basic situation:
- The interest in LoL is huge. People want to discuss and read about the game daily. There is a massive demand for content related to League of Legends. The last series of Fnatic at the LoL Worlds 2020 was watched by 2.4 million people at its peak.
- The most successful LoL in recent years is played in China. The mid-laner of FunPlus Phoenix, Doinb, was the star of the Worlds in 2019. Doinb is known for being particularly creative and innovative. The mid-laner regularly shares his thoughts on current developments in live streams, but he does so in Chinese.
- Hardly anyone in the West speaks Chinese; the Chinese teams do not provide translations either: Thus, YouTubers step in, translate the statements of the Chinese stars, and post the clips with English subtitles on YouTube.
- But now these translated clips suddenly disappeared from the net.
“Malicious mistranslations” in circulation
This is the problem now: In a Twitter message, FunPlus Phoenix states they discovered that “malicious mistranslations” of clips from their players are circulating on YouTube, reddit, and other platforms. This harms the brand and the reputation of FunPlus Phoenix.
They have begun to initiate “legal action” to ensure this does not happen again.
By “legal action,” it is apparently meant that the organization is having clips removed for “copyright infringement” and may sue the creators of these clips if they resist.
This has happened to providers of Fortnite cheats on YouTube.
Under the tweet, journalist Ashley Kang gives an example of such a mistranslation. A translator inaccurately translated Doinb’s Chinese statements into Korean.
Doinb discusses statements from fans about the bot laner of DRX, Deft. In the chat, fans asked: “Is he really not good? Is he in bad form or is he really that weak?” Doinb replied: “If he was really that bad, as you say, how did he make it to the Worlds?”
So Doinb is actually defending the player Deft.
However, the translator of a clip made it: “The player is so bad. How did he even make it to the Worlds?”
In this translation, Doinb expresses harsh criticism of a colleague. The translation is misleading but can then be used to sensationalize the YouTube clip and put the statement in the title.
FunPlus Phoenix apparently wants to put an end to such behavior. Therefore, they consistently have such clips deleted through a copyright infringement complaint, translating the statements of their players themselves.
World Champion hires translators directly from YouTube
This is what happens next: Apparently, FunPlus Phoenix is pursuing a dual strategy. They have now discovered how great the need is in the West to understand the analyses and comments from Doinb.
On reddit, user “Scoople” reports: He says he translated the latest videos of Doinb (via reddit), but then his videos also disappeared from YouTube due to copyright violation.
Now FunPlus Phoenix has contacted him, wanting to hire him as an “official translator”.
The World Champion team from 2019 apparently wants to resolve the issue of “false translations” as follows:
- They take down unauthorized translations of the videos through copyright strikes
- And then offer their own official translation
Doinb managed to attract many new fans in the West during the short phase of the Worlds in 2019, who now hang on his lips and want to hear what he thinks about LoL and how he ticks. People on reddit emphasize how entertaining Doinb is.
Doinb not only played fantastically but also has a great story to tell about where he came from and how he became an LoL star. Because although Doinb is so successful in China, he was considered a failure in his home country, South Korea, and wanted to give up everything:
The 22-year-old Doinb is the new star in LoL – he was once considered cursed
