Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court issued two more injunctions against three Bytedance apps, prohibiting them from livestreaming Tencent games “Honour of Kings” and “CrossFire,” 36Kr reported.
Why it matters: Tencent has been unrelenting in stripping Bytedance of the right to use its games in content as it fends off rivals to live-streaming platforms it has invested in, such as Nasdaq-listed Douyu and NYSE-listed Huya.
- Tencent has sued Bytedance eight times since November 2018 over game copyrights.
Details: The court ordered Bytedance’s short video app Huoshan Video to stop livestreaming “Honour of Kings” and demanded that Xigua Video and content aggregator Jinri Toutiao halt livestreams of first-person shooter game “CrossFire.”
- Tencent said the user agreement for its games prohibits users from recording, livestreaming, or distributing game content without its authorization.
- Bytedance argued that users have right to stream footage of Tencent’s games being played, or at least share the right to stream Tencent’s IP. This right, according to Bytedance, gives users the right to livestream the games on Bytedance apps.
- The court ruled that Tencent has full rights to gameplay footage of “Honour of Kings” because users don’t add unique contributions to the footage and are only using assets created by developers.
Context: Tencent has successfully barred three Bytedance apps from livestreaming several of its most popular games, though most of the bans have been temporary injunctions, not final rulings.
- Xigua Video has been banned from livestreaming “Honour of Kings,” “Cross Fire,” and “League of Legends.”
- Huoshan Video has been prohibited from livestreaming “Honour of Kings.”
- Jinri Toutiao is no longer allowed to livestream “CrossFire” and “League of Legends,” nor can it host short videos related to “Honour of Kings.”