Koei Tecmo sues Chinese company for repeated copyright infringement 

Koei Tecmo Games announced on April 8 that they have filed a lawsuit against the Singapore-based subsidiary of a Chinese game developer. The suit was brought against Youzo (Singapore) PTE, Ltd for malicious copyright infringement, and Koei Tecmo is seeking damages and other compensation. 

The lawsuit claims that Youzo has repeatedly used music, game assets and trademarks from the Koei Tecmo series’ Nobunaga’s Ambition and Taiko Risshiden in its mobile game advertisements. Koei Tecmo has deemed this behavior to constitute malicious copyright infringement. 

Apparently, Youzo has been infringing on Koei Tecmo’s copyright for quite some time. Koei Tecmo has already sent several cease-and-desist letters to the company, but their behavior has continued.  Advertisements for Youzo’s mobile game applications have not only used copyrighted music and imagery, but have also used the name Koei Tecmo Games without permission, giving the false impression that the Japanese developer was involved in the product. 

Regarding their decision to file a lawsuit, Koei Tecmo stated, “We have determined that the defendant’s conduct is not only detrimental to users and (Koei Tecmo’s) partner companies, but also undermines the efforts of all parties who were involved in the development of our games and is extremely malicious.” 

Youzo is a game company that is also known as YOOZOO Games. Established in China, it has released numerous smartphone titles such as League of Angels and Infinity Kingdom. Recently, the company has also distributed mobile games in Japan, which although not the same, have elements similar to the historical country-conquering and internal politics that feature in Koei Tecmo titles. They also made Game of Thrones Winter is Coming, an officially licensed, real-time strategy title for PC. 

At the time of writing, it is not known which Youzo games used Koei Tecmo Games’ IP without permission in their web advertising. It is likely that these details will be revealed in court. 

Written by. Verity Townsend based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2024-04-08 18:12 JST)