Riot Games Sues Mobile Game Developer Behind Mobile Legends
Update 2022: The federal court in California dismissed Riot's claims about this lawsuit ultimately ruling that the case should be heard in China, not the United States. Riot has little chance of winning in China as they chose to sue in the U.S. knowing they had a better shot here. Tencent, Riot's owner, filed a lawsuit in China against Moonton's CEO and won a $2.9 million judgement for violating a non-compete, but Moonton itself was not found liable.
In related news, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, purchased Moonton in 2021 for League of Legends, it became a massive commercial success and its copycat behavior has not been ruled illegal in any jurisdiction.
Original Story Below:
Mobile Legends developer Shanghai Moonton Technology was hit by a lawsuit this week by Riot Games for copyright infringement. Anyone who has ever played or even seen Mobile Legends shouldn't be too surprised with this revelation; Mobile Legends is obviously a knock off of League of Legends. It doesn't take a copyright lawyer to realize it either. Just take a look:
League of Legends (Left) Mobile Legends (Right)
But beyond just copying the map, Mobile Legends also copied many of the iconic characters in League of Legends:
Moonton Technology obviously doesn't agree though. They released a statement on their facebook page:
“Mobile Legends is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) that is developed by Moonton independently, and its copyright has already been ed and protected in multiple countries all over the world,“ the statement, posted on Tuesday, said.
“Mobile Legends and all the s will not be affected by these unreal reports and we will keep providing the best gameplay experience to players all over the world.”
They also cautioned of the media from spreading "false information". Sounds like they're calling us fake news.
Despite the game's popularity it doesn't really pose a big threat to League of Legends, at least in the West. The game is super popular in Asia though. I suspect the timing of this lawsuit is related to the launch of Strike of Kings (Honor of Kings) in the West. While Strike of Kings also has many similarities to League of Legends, both games are owned by Tencent, the parent company of Riot Games.
It may not even be worth asking, but do you think Mobile Legends is a rip off? I wonder what their defense is going to be.
Oh and here's another character they ripped off:
According to the actual lawsuit there are dozens of characters in Mobile Legends which are just league knockoffs.
For the record, I absolutely think Mobile Legends blatantly copied much of League of Legends, but this alone does not constitute copyright infringement. Unless they copy/pasted the exact art assets, it isn't copyright infringement. This kind of behavior is definitely unimaginative and kind of shady, but it's likely not illegal.
Images sourced from actual lawsuit
