Chinese electronics company sues Blizzard over fonts
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 16th 2007 at 3:00PM
An electronics company in Beijing has sued Blizzard, claiming that they allegedly used five copyrighted fonts in World of Warcraft. Founder Electronics wants 100 million yuan for the alleged infringement, which is apparently the largest amount ever asked for by a Chinese company in a copyright case (Founder claims the loss cost them 1 billion yuan). The case is sitting in front of the Beijing High People's Court, and the9, which is the Chinese company that runs WoW there, is considering their options.I'm assuming that means the9's Chinese version of WoW, which would mean the fonts themselves are for Chinese characters, so there's probably no fonts that English-speaking users would recognize ingame. However, Founder is apparently known for creating some of the most popular fonts in China, so the odds that someone at the9 used one of them (or at the very least one that looked like one of them) are probably pretty good (the picture on this post is from a Founder event, not a Blizzard event, so the obvious use of the Founder font there doesn't count). Of course it's up to the High Court to decide whether the infringement actually took place or not-- no word on how long the judgment will take.
Filed under: Odds and ends, Blizzard, News items, AddOns
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Corrodias Aug 16th 2007 3:24PM
Font ownership is the biggest pile of nonsense i've ever heard of. You HAVE to use certain letters, and it's the minor variations in their shapes that you want to copyright? I don't have many nice things to say to people who want to make others pay for fonts.
klink-o Aug 16th 2007 3:27PM
The info-net tells me one billion yuan is about 131.5 million dollars. What I want to know is how a game using their fonts could possibly cost them that much money.
handclaw Aug 16th 2007 4:58PM
What makes me wonder... The game is out for 3 years, but they notice it now? Though, I must admit I don't know when it was released in China... :\ Well, what do you think?
G Aug 16th 2007 6:39PM
As of 3:36pm PT 8/16, US$13,161,185.03
Mike Schramm Aug 16th 2007 7:08PM
Guys, it pains me that I even have to say this, but racist comments on this topic have been, and will be deleted.
Zechs Aug 16th 2007 7:48PM
Juda's pay: there, there, have fun making business with a regime based on slavery... Iops, your money is gone now! Are you going to complain to who now, noob?
Verit Aug 16th 2007 7:50PM
@1
I work for a font foundry actually - and I take offense that you think they should be free.
Just as much development time goes into making a good font as any program or piece of artwork. A lot of engineering and QA effort go into making good fonts.
I'm not saying Blizzard is right or wrong on this issue - thats for the courts to decide, but if you made something (again that took months of engineering and artistic talent) and someone made money off your creation would you just say "I don't have many nice things to say to people who want to make others pay for fonts". I doubt it.
Andrew Aug 16th 2007 8:09PM
9mil Subscribers.... x $15/m...
Wait, No. Only the US and EU have the $15 /m rate, Asia is cheaper from what I understand.
So 3mil x $15/m... ~$45,000,000.
The demand would cost Blizzard approx 1.2 weeks of subscription income from the US/EU.
And the problem with this is...?
Verit Aug 16th 2007 8:16PM
@8
Well the problem would be if Blizzard really didn't violate any copyrights - which is entirely possible.
Ironically the price to license any typeface is tiny - about 150$ for a complete set.
Barry Aug 20th 2007 7:28AM
"Ironically the price to license any typeface is tiny - about 150$ for a complete set."
To the buddy above:
That is not the case for Chinese Font! Because for English you only have to deal with 26 characters, but for Chinese, we do not have any character, each of our word could be considered as a tiny picture if you first see them, so it is much much more difficult to develop a set of font.
To give you a little example, "魔兽世界--燃烧的远征" means world of warcraft--the burning crusade. Hope the you can see the Chinese word I input in your IE.
To my opinion, Founder has its own purposes to bring this case up, and it is just more than the issue of copyright. 100 million compensation is just too much, and Founder just say they will soon announce how they caculate their lost to such a large amount of mondy, so let's wait and see. I feel I like wow because of it content, not the font, I bet most of the players here in China will agree with me.
BTW, now in China, we have NOT got the content of TBC! we are STILL waiting the dump 9th city to "get through the certain procdure"! It has been 7 months now since the release of BC in US and the Wrath of the Lich King was announced last week...... I bet if blizzard put Zhujun(Boss of the 9th city) in any of the instances, no wonder it is gonna be the most popular target of cwow players.
Many people are saying blizzard chose the wrong partner in China, personally I would agree. If the 9th city continues to mess things up like this and blizzard would not interfere, I am sure they will lost large amount of the players -- there are more than 3 million people play wow during the most popular period of time.
"We are ready and WE ARE WAITING~~~~~~" it is from optimus prime and fits well for all the wow players in China!
Wildhammer Aug 16th 2007 11:27PM
Sueing people for.... Fonts? >_<
If anyone's going to sue ANYONE for fonts, it should be Games Workshop sueing Blizzard. They used the exact same text for the WarCraft title as Games Workshop uses for their Warhammer Fantasy titles. In short though the whole thing seems incredibly silly.
kuri Aug 17th 2007 9:07AM
LOL, China complaining about infringement of IPR.
And US$100m lost on a font? Unless they're calculating the royalty fees they'd be receiving from Blizzard, it's a load of crap.
Mick Aug 17th 2007 4:00PM
Does anyone find it laughable that the kings of copyright infringement are sueing for copyright infringement?