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March 11, 2010

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It's Warcraft in the courtroom

WORLD of Warcraft Chinese carrier The9 Ltd took WoW developer Blizzard Entertainment to court yesterday, suing it for 12 million yuan (US$1.76 million) in losses.

Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court was told that the United States-based game developer had changed WoW user licenses and packs in China without informing The9 in May, just before Blizzard changed WoW Chinese operators in July.

The9 is suing Blizzard for a loss of 10 million yuan based on its monthly income and 2 million yuan for an investigation fee after the WoW servers didn't work for a day.

The WoW game, played by more than 1 million Chinese mainlanders, has been operated by Nasdaq-listed NetEase.com since July. NetEase replaced The9 as operator of WoW on the mainland.

The9 used to depend on WoW income, with the game contributing more than 90 percent to The9's revenue.

Blizzard said previously that it had the right to edit or change user licenses in the world market, including China.

This month, Beijing Higher People's Court ordered Blizzard, The9 and other two parties to pay compensation of 1.45 million yuan to Chinese PC maker Founder Technology Group for copyright infringement.

In August 2007, Founder Technology Group sued Blizzard and The9 for copyright infringement, claiming Blizzard used five of Founder's registered fonts for the Chinese characters in the game.

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