Xigua Video, the personalized short video recommendation platform of ByteDance, is sued by Tencent. Tencent sued ByteDance in Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court due to the infringement of copyright.
As reported by tech.sina.com.cn., Xigua Video (西瓜视频), the personalized short video recommendation platform of ByteDance (字节跳动), is sued by Tencent. Tencent sued ByteDance in Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court due to the infringement of copyright. It is said that Xigua Video recruit and organize the video game streamers to record live videos of Chinese version of Arena of Valor (王者荣耀), the most popular MOBA game in China, which brought an income of USD 1.93 Billion to Tencent in 2018. By livestreaming the videos of Arena of Valor, Xigua Video has received lots of income without the authorization of Tencent.
The court has banned the video game streaming of Arena of Valor through a written judgement on January 31: From this day on, the Xigua Video App and its related three companies Yuncheng City Sunshine Culture Media (运城市阳光文化传媒有限公司), Toutiao （今日头条）and ByteDance are banned to livestream games of Arena of Valor on the Xigua Video.
The game industry is developing very fast in recent years, and so is the livestreaming industry of the games. This case is the first behavior preservation injunction in the game industry.
This could indicates 2 main reasons: the first reason remains the game industry, and the second reason is among the two companies.
Since August 2018, Chinese government has frozen the game approvals, which brought the winter of the game industry. The whole game industry is waiting for the game approval official documents. With no game approvals, new games cannot enter into the market as no one has the authority to release new games.
With this freeze of game approvals, the game industry encounters its barrier. However on the other hand, the video game streaming is developing very fast. The video game streaming has received an income of USD 1.1 Billion, which hit the year-on-year growth of 107.2%. Xigua Video is benefiting from the video game streaming of Arena of Valor, which is the big cake during the winter of the game industry. This could be the beginning of the case.
The second possible reason is Tencent and ByteDance competing with each other. The battle started since January 15, when Tik Tok's Parent Company Launches Social App Duoshan, and the public saw it as an action against WeChat. Later on January 25, 2019, WeChat Official Account published its official notice of The Treatment of Induction of Violation and Hostile Confrontation to WeChat Regulation Rules.