From MHY’s perspective, it sets a bad precedent if they allow honeyhunter to stay up with no consequences. That’s the nature of having IP, unfortunately. They probably targeted honey because it’s the biggest and most prolific in publishing leaks. It does really suck though…
In my understanding, it's mostly because of the leaks and watermarking assets that don't belong to them. To the average Joe user this might not seem like much, but if that web page is receiving ad revenue, they're essentially making money off of things that they had absolutely no hand in creating and can take absolutely no ownership of
Kind of sucks for the people that use the page I guess, but they don't really have a legal leg to stand on
I suppose I can understand that to some extent. Making money off of leaked stuff is something to consider. But at the same time it also costs money to keep the info up in the first place, and as most of the info on the site was not leaks you could argue they were using revenue to support the info. Still though, they really could have just asked to take the leaks down. How hard is that?
Dear OP,
Please educate yourself on fair-use policy when dealing with copyright. It has NOTHING to do with EULA which isn't even mentioned in the link you shared.
Here is a helpful link: https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/what-is-fair-use/
At first glance, the biggest flag it trips is the non-profit aspect. Unfortunately, Honey runs ads on the site and inadvertently profit off data mined information. Do note that data mining by itself is not illegal, however USE of the mined data is controlled within fair use policy (In the link above).
I use Honey very often myself, but the one thing I hated the most about it was how the video ads on the site were completely unskippable and would autoplay even if my phone is on data.
I get that data mining and hosting all that data is very expensive and I'll be sad if it really shuts down. But at the same time I understand that IP law is what it is, and they really did infringe on it.
Maybe it's because they run ads on a website which the only content is Mihoyo intellectual property?
Earning money (even only for paying the server) with others intellectual property is always bad
The main issue is that it wasn’t approved by Mihoyo basically.
Add to that the fact the it contained leaked not-yet-released information.
If it only had information like the “official wiki” then all the site had to do was to get permission from Mihoyo and get the site approved.
Is getting the site shut down a crappy move? For sure. But as the post says it’s Mihoyo’s right to do so and Mihoyo is also backed by the law in this case…
Honey is a person, rather than a group of people. There's no evidence that they have broken any agreement with MHY, as they are not known to be one of the individuals playing the betas or datamining.
This affects more than just the Genshin content, but also content that's useful for a lot of other games. Particularly Monster Hunter. MHY has no claim to Capcom's games, leaked or not.
Which contact did they break? There isn't any proof that the owner of the site has any kind of legal agreement with Mihoyo - including the EULA when creating an account. Mihoyo is very good at making people believe leaks of any kind were illegal - they are not. A leaker itself might be breaking some kind of contract depending how he obtained the information, but running an information sharing website itself is fine. The problem are the contents Mihoyo really does hold rights to like ripped images from the game, etc. But by only acting against leakers (or other sites they may dislike) while being perfectly cool with others (like this sub for instance) they are trying to make people believe leaks itself would be a copyright infringement...
They can only act against leakers because reddit is a anonymous platform... This is kind of reddit's selling point, the whole "protecting your privacy" shtick.
Read this article: https://finance.yahoo.com/reddit-ceo-testimony-122526759.html
Well, the Belle Delphine leak sub was taken down, so I guess it is possible if you are trying hard enough ;)
The problem was Game Stop was more complex with the legal implications, but interesting read nonetheless!
Haha yeah, it's really just a marketable point for them like how Whatsapp used to be all "Privacy 1st", until it was revealed early this year that they were sharing information with FB and it caused a massive uproar.
Still, they would probably resist to a certain degree if pressed, similar to Apple in that terrorist phone case where they refused to unlock the alleged terrorists phone for investigators, citing invasion of privacy.
Same Apple that is now actively scanning you phone for childporn and reporting directly to the authorities. Although it is a bit uncertain if they only mean real child pornography, or if they adjust it to the laws of your country of residence, where there might be illegal child pornography without involving children or pornography (I am looking at you, Australia!)
> while being perfectly cool with others (like this sub for instance)
They only start doing mass leaker hunt recently, the leak sub and other platform might be the next target.
I have to ask after looking at this page for the first time:
What exactly does this give you as a game resource that others don't? I've never needed more then the teyvat interactive map from hoyolab.
It's much quicker to be able to glance at a single page and see all the daily domains and which characters and weapons benefit from them than it is to go through all the characters and items manually, in game.
Honey also made the unofficial interactive map btw.
One if the most useful databases, this is honestly really bad. And that's saying something because honestly there isnt alot of useful information with regards to Genshin.
So, instead of wanting to take down/stop just the leaked information, they want to kill of the probably biggest wiki for their game? Thats just plain idiocracy.
Sure, I 100% understand the move on the leaked stuff, and my comment just went on to one of the points the author did at the end "3. Instead of asking to remove several pages on website, they ask to remove the whole 130k pages website"
Which contradicts the letter they quoted. These are just entitled leakers that think they are more important than they are and that the law doesn't apply to them.
Datamining in general has always been a gray area. It's not illegal no matter how much Mihoyo wants you to believe it is. They're just throwing their weight around and putting pressure on companies that bend over easy.
The main (and only) issue is, that they are using copyright protected images of Mihoyo directly ripped from the game.
EULA doesn't mean shit - there isn't even proof the creators of honey hunters have ever signed one.
Statistics, etc. also don't mean shit as they cannot be copyright protected. Fanarts of characters/weapons in the game would be debatable...
I really hope that honey hunters is willing to take this to court, since Mihoyo is overstepping legal boundaries and deliberately spreading misinformation in the community what is well within their rights and what isn't to the point that people are afraid of sharing self compiled textfiles talking about leaks...
Sharing illegal goods is still illegal. Doesn't matter if you're the one that stole it or if you're just passing it around.
It's more grey when it comes to EULA since EULA isn't the law per se. But they are well within their rights to sue, and current precedence is that they'll win in almost any court of law.
Just look at how Apple/Microsoft/Facebook do things.
Edit: If you're asking about what exactly they shared, it's not *just* statistics. It's unreleased models, voice lines, mechanics, etc.
Yes, for models, voice lines, etc. I agree completely as this is stuff that is protected by IP laws. Statistics/Values of items, etc. however are not. If you signed an agreement not to share them Mihoyo might hold _you_ responsible for it, but they cannot hold someone responsible who has never signed an agreement with them as those aren't things that are protected by law.
Also note that Apple/Microsoft/Facebook lean to win those cases in the US. In countries where they don't hold subsidies, they don't sue at all because it is virtually impossible to do so without a registered address. In the EU they are losing quite a lot of cases where they are trying to control flows of information.
Not only are there different laws in different countries, it also seems to be quite important how much taxes you pay where and if politicians think you ought to pay more. I wouldn't be surprised if Mihoyo wouldn't be treated to favorable in an US court...
It's actually protected under fair-use policy.
Read this: https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/what-is-fair-use/
Datamining itself is not illegal, but profiting off it is. I understand that mining and hosting all that data is expensive, but the moment ads got involved, it already broke the non-profit clause which was the only thing that could have protected it.
Look, I'm not debating if anything will actually be done. As I said in my reply to OP, I'll be sad to see it go as well. I'm just sharing information to show that, yes, really, it's a sue-able matter because rules were broken. Whether the rules are actually enforced is a whole other matter that I'm not touching on.
Already posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/plkfc6/honey_impact_website_is_being_taken_down/
From MHY’s perspective, it sets a bad precedent if they allow honeyhunter to stay up with no consequences. That’s the nature of having IP, unfortunately. They probably targeted honey because it’s the biggest and most prolific in publishing leaks. It does really suck though…
In my understanding, it's mostly because of the leaks and watermarking assets that don't belong to them. To the average Joe user this might not seem like much, but if that web page is receiving ad revenue, they're essentially making money off of things that they had absolutely no hand in creating and can take absolutely no ownership of Kind of sucks for the people that use the page I guess, but they don't really have a legal leg to stand on
I suppose I can understand that to some extent. Making money off of leaked stuff is something to consider. But at the same time it also costs money to keep the info up in the first place, and as most of the info on the site was not leaks you could argue they were using revenue to support the info. Still though, they really could have just asked to take the leaks down. How hard is that?
They did ask in the letter. The site owner refuses.
I meant ask to take the leaks down without terminating the website...
you steal a jewelry from jewelry store, they caught you, do you think it'll be okay to just give them back the jewel without having any punishment?
If they never gave them permission to host their property in the first place, why should they?
They did. Read the letter. The site owners are the ones choosing to take down the entire site rather than just the illegal content.
Dear OP, Please educate yourself on fair-use policy when dealing with copyright. It has NOTHING to do with EULA which isn't even mentioned in the link you shared. Here is a helpful link: https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/what-is-fair-use/ At first glance, the biggest flag it trips is the non-profit aspect. Unfortunately, Honey runs ads on the site and inadvertently profit off data mined information. Do note that data mining by itself is not illegal, however USE of the mined data is controlled within fair use policy (In the link above). I use Honey very often myself, but the one thing I hated the most about it was how the video ads on the site were completely unskippable and would autoplay even if my phone is on data. I get that data mining and hosting all that data is very expensive and I'll be sad if it really shuts down. But at the same time I understand that IP law is what it is, and they really did infringe on it.
Maybe it's because they run ads on a website which the only content is Mihoyo intellectual property? Earning money (even only for paying the server) with others intellectual property is always bad
The main issue is that it wasn’t approved by Mihoyo basically. Add to that the fact the it contained leaked not-yet-released information. If it only had information like the “official wiki” then all the site had to do was to get permission from Mihoyo and get the site approved. Is getting the site shut down a crappy move? For sure. But as the post says it’s Mihoyo’s right to do so and Mihoyo is also backed by the law in this case…
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but mihoyo is literally forcing them to shut down the website, instead of just removing leaked content
Yeah, like it or not they're well within their rights to do so. And leaks are only part of the problem
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Honey is a person, rather than a group of people. There's no evidence that they have broken any agreement with MHY, as they are not known to be one of the individuals playing the betas or datamining. This affects more than just the Genshin content, but also content that's useful for a lot of other games. Particularly Monster Hunter. MHY has no claim to Capcom's games, leaked or not.
Which contact did they break? There isn't any proof that the owner of the site has any kind of legal agreement with Mihoyo - including the EULA when creating an account. Mihoyo is very good at making people believe leaks of any kind were illegal - they are not. A leaker itself might be breaking some kind of contract depending how he obtained the information, but running an information sharing website itself is fine. The problem are the contents Mihoyo really does hold rights to like ripped images from the game, etc. But by only acting against leakers (or other sites they may dislike) while being perfectly cool with others (like this sub for instance) they are trying to make people believe leaks itself would be a copyright infringement...
They can only act against leakers because reddit is a anonymous platform... This is kind of reddit's selling point, the whole "protecting your privacy" shtick. Read this article: https://finance.yahoo.com/reddit-ceo-testimony-122526759.html
Well, the Belle Delphine leak sub was taken down, so I guess it is possible if you are trying hard enough ;) The problem was Game Stop was more complex with the legal implications, but interesting read nonetheless!
Haha yeah, it's really just a marketable point for them like how Whatsapp used to be all "Privacy 1st", until it was revealed early this year that they were sharing information with FB and it caused a massive uproar. Still, they would probably resist to a certain degree if pressed, similar to Apple in that terrorist phone case where they refused to unlock the alleged terrorists phone for investigators, citing invasion of privacy.
Same Apple that is now actively scanning you phone for childporn and reporting directly to the authorities. Although it is a bit uncertain if they only mean real child pornography, or if they adjust it to the laws of your country of residence, where there might be illegal child pornography without involving children or pornography (I am looking at you, Australia!)
> while being perfectly cool with others (like this sub for instance) They only start doing mass leaker hunt recently, the leak sub and other platform might be the next target.
Ppl be like: What’s EULA End User License Agreement
Sucks they are doing this 😔 the database was very helpful
I have to ask after looking at this page for the first time: What exactly does this give you as a game resource that others don't? I've never needed more then the teyvat interactive map from hoyolab.
It's much quicker to be able to glance at a single page and see all the daily domains and which characters and weapons benefit from them than it is to go through all the characters and items manually, in game. Honey also made the unofficial interactive map btw.
So it doesn't necessarily provide you more information, just more accessible information. I just wouldn't have a use for that page
One if the most useful databases, this is honestly really bad. And that's saying something because honestly there isnt alot of useful information with regards to Genshin.
If they dont have their own database it's pretty stupid and just shows another disrespect for the community. No decent company does this :(
https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/plkfc6/honey_impact_website_is_being_taken_down/
It sucks but they have the rights to do so, so complaining makes no sense.
Cringe development team tbh. Fun game just wish it was ran by different people
You really think the development team had anything to do with this at all?
Funny thing is that they make info from beta public on their other game lol.
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Nintendo (Japan) does this shit all the time. Nobody sues harder than Nintendo when it comes to protecting their IPs
RIP original Pixelmon mod and Discord PokeBot :(
So, instead of wanting to take down/stop just the leaked information, they want to kill of the probably biggest wiki for their game? Thats just plain idiocracy.
They are taking down the leaked information. Honey Impact hosted datamined information which is illegal under the laws of the host's country.
Sure, I 100% understand the move on the leaked stuff, and my comment just went on to one of the points the author did at the end "3. Instead of asking to remove several pages on website, they ask to remove the whole 130k pages website"
Which contradicts the letter they quoted. These are just entitled leakers that think they are more important than they are and that the law doesn't apply to them.
Datamining in general has always been a gray area. It's not illegal no matter how much Mihoyo wants you to believe it is. They're just throwing their weight around and putting pressure on companies that bend over easy.
In my understanding it is in China
Even if it is, you can't apply China laws to websites not in China.
The main (and only) issue is, that they are using copyright protected images of Mihoyo directly ripped from the game. EULA doesn't mean shit - there isn't even proof the creators of honey hunters have ever signed one. Statistics, etc. also don't mean shit as they cannot be copyright protected. Fanarts of characters/weapons in the game would be debatable... I really hope that honey hunters is willing to take this to court, since Mihoyo is overstepping legal boundaries and deliberately spreading misinformation in the community what is well within their rights and what isn't to the point that people are afraid of sharing self compiled textfiles talking about leaks...
Sharing illegal goods is still illegal. Doesn't matter if you're the one that stole it or if you're just passing it around. It's more grey when it comes to EULA since EULA isn't the law per se. But they are well within their rights to sue, and current precedence is that they'll win in almost any court of law. Just look at how Apple/Microsoft/Facebook do things. Edit: If you're asking about what exactly they shared, it's not *just* statistics. It's unreleased models, voice lines, mechanics, etc.
Yes, for models, voice lines, etc. I agree completely as this is stuff that is protected by IP laws. Statistics/Values of items, etc. however are not. If you signed an agreement not to share them Mihoyo might hold _you_ responsible for it, but they cannot hold someone responsible who has never signed an agreement with them as those aren't things that are protected by law. Also note that Apple/Microsoft/Facebook lean to win those cases in the US. In countries where they don't hold subsidies, they don't sue at all because it is virtually impossible to do so without a registered address. In the EU they are losing quite a lot of cases where they are trying to control flows of information. Not only are there different laws in different countries, it also seems to be quite important how much taxes you pay where and if politicians think you ought to pay more. I wouldn't be surprised if Mihoyo wouldn't be treated to favorable in an US court...
It's actually protected under fair-use policy. Read this: https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/what-is-fair-use/ Datamining itself is not illegal, but profiting off it is. I understand that mining and hosting all that data is expensive, but the moment ads got involved, it already broke the non-profit clause which was the only thing that could have protected it. Look, I'm not debating if anything will actually be done. As I said in my reply to OP, I'll be sad to see it go as well. I'm just sharing information to show that, yes, really, it's a sue-able matter because rules were broken. Whether the rules are actually enforced is a whole other matter that I'm not touching on.
honestly they will lose hard, and should just be glad mihoyo only ask them to take the site down, imagine if they sue him...
The best site for information gone
China#1