Recently,Shanghai Intellectual Property Court concluded an appeal case involving copyright infringement and unfair competition - Hugen Star Information Technology Co., Ltd and Guangzhou Weidong Network Technology Co., Ltd v. Shanghai Zhuangyou Information Technology Co., Ltd. This is China's first case involving recognition of the overall picture of online game as movie-like works. Currently, there's a great dispute over the recognition of types of online game works and their judicial protection approaches in  judicial practice and theory. In this case, active exploration was made to the judicial recognition of types of online game works, which was conductive to their judicial protection and curbing increasing online game infringement, thereby promoting the healthy and orderly development of online game market.

In this case, MU Miracle was an online game developed byKorea Webzen Global Digital Entertainment Inc and Zhuangyou was authorized to operate the game and safeguard the rights thereof exclusively in China. In 2013, Hugen Star developed the webgame Myth Of Miracle without authorization and exclusively authorized Weidong to operate it, which was identical or basically identical to MU Miracle in terms of three role names and skills, level settings, map scenes, weapons, monsters and NPC of the first 400 levels.

After the trial, the court held that the overall picture of MU Miracle met the requirements on constitutive element of works stipulated in the Copyright Law of P.R.C. and could be deemed as works according to the Copyright Law. Movie-like works is composed of continuous active pictures, which is a characteristic constitutive element. The overall picture of the online game involved was also composed of continuous active pictures, which varies with user operations but never go beyond the game settings nor be creations independent of the game. Therefore, the overall picture of an original online games that constitutes the substantial constitutive element of movie-like works can be classified as movie-like works. By comparison, it's found the overall picture of Myth Of Miracle was substantially similar to that of MU Miracle, meaning Hugen Star's and Weidong's act constituted copyright infringement. In addition, the advertising of Hugen Star and Weidong was likely to mislead users that Myth Of Miracle was associated with MU Miracle and thus constituted unfair competition. Given the above, the court ruled that Hugen Star and Weidong should stop the infringement and unfair competition, compensate for Zhuangyou's economic losses totaling RMB 4,000,000 yuan and reasonable expenses totaling RMB 100,000+ yuan, and publish a statement to eliminate the impact.