Star iron ghost penalty 500,000: leak new character information infringement of trade secrets

Recently, the People's Court of Shanghai Pudong New Area made a judgment on the case of unauthorized disclosure of undisclosed game content infringement by test players of "Collapse: Star Dome Railway", finding that players constituted infringement of trade secrets and awarded compensation of 500,000 yuan.

The defendant Chen participated in the game test from October 2023 to February 2024, during which he secretly recorded and secretly photographed the test content and disclosed it to third parties. In April 2024, miHoYo, the operator of "Collapse: Star Dome Railway", filed a lawsuit in court.

Chen argued that miHoYo Shadow Iron did not enjoy the legitimate rights and interests of the game content involved in the case, and the game characters involved had been disclosed before participating in the test, which did not fall within the scope of trade secret protection.

After the trial, the court held that Chen, as a test player, had access to undisclosed game information, and his actions violated miHoYo Shadow Iron's trade secrets. Even if the game characters have been made public, the business model of increasing attention and gaining a competitive advantage through game version updates is still protected.

The court ruled that Chen compensate miHoYo shadow iron 500,000 yuan, and issued a statement to eliminate the impact.

The judgment in this case established an important referee's point of view that the game content protected is not just itself, but also a business model that increases attention and gains competitive advantage through version updates.