$6 Billion Esports Giant has stolen artwork from indie artists (and others) all over their socials and in their game

[u/More_Willingness7101]

Mobile Legends, the game that Riot sued a few times awhile back and has gone on to rank #2 on the Esports charts and was nominated for Esports at last year's Game Awards, has potentially modified stolen artwork from completely independent artists (and other companies, some large and some smaller indie studios) all over their Facebook and YouTube in posts ranging from 2016 to literally this year, as well as sold this art in their game in the past allegedly without ever notifying or paying the artists.

Other larger post showing comparisons of some of this art currently on their Facebook on their sub: r/MobileLegendsGame Post

The people on their sub basically said "we know and we don't care." I'm guessing a lot of these artists though don't currently know about this, especially since in a recent YT investigation into the game, one of the independent artists named “Zeronis” who was allegedly stolen from and had his art used to model a skin off of that was sold in the game said that he was never approached by the creators of the game, was never compensated for their use of his art, and never knew this had happened in the first place. The owners of the game definitely made money off selling this skin and others like it based on it appearing in old footage of the game in matches.

Video: Exposing Mobile Legends
(Section from 9:45 to 10:30)

Not to mention a lot of their trailers on their YouTube plagiarized other game trailers like Elden Ring, Castlevania, and LoL which made a controversy a year ago and those trailers were never taken down.

I'm not making this post to damage this game’s reputation or anything, I’m just posting this here to bring awareness to this and in case there's anything that can be done to help out at least the artists who have come forward saying they were stolen from.

Credit to Glad2be1000 on YT for his investigation and [u/MasterDevelopment481](u/MasterDevelopment481) for discovering the Valorant art.

[u/Persies]

I mean those are clearly ripped straight from things like Dota, WoW etc not even indie art

[u/Aliusja1990]

They didnt even try with kungfu panda

[u/maxdog107 → u/Aliusja1990]

That’s because it was a crossover event and is licensed. That is literally a kung fu panda skin and not the base model.

[u/More_Willingness7101 → u/maxdog107]

Nope, crossover event happened like 5-6 years after they posted that image, they straight up just used an unlicensed picture of Kung Fu Panda in their game and on their Facebook years before they officially collaborated.

They even changed it in their game because it wasn’t licensed, but they left it on their Facebook for some reason

[u/maxdog107 → u/More_Willingness7101]

Oh wow, my mistake then. Makes sense though since I first learned about this game through its blatant disregard for copyright lol.

[u/Waste-Technology-381]

Its a Chinese game bro no one is gonna give a single shit

[u/The_Kaizz]

I know there's always the "inspired by" argument, but seeing these are just blatant low effort recolors.

[u/zarafff69]

Who cares? Let’s be real here..

[u/CarousalAnimal]

Their lawyer probably like "Bro Ong you tripping yall know yall coulda changed Kung Fu Panda a little fucking more"

[u/Aryzal]

MLBB plagerizing? Always has been.

At this point, they probably have a fund somewhere for plagerism lawsuits, because it still makes more profit getting sued. They have already been sued by Riot and then continued plagerizing.

[u/Introverted_Dude9260]

You're too late for this as they do these all the time since the last past decade. Last time I checked they we're sued multiple times but don't know what happen then. MLBB has very big audience market especially on south east asia and most people doesn't care about these issues anymore.

Also this is a game from china, most of the time their games has been always ripped off ("inspired") by other games.

[u/LTArts]

I blame the consumer 100% here

[u/BillRuddickJrPhd]

Under 17 U.S.C. § 103(a), copyright protection does not extend to portions of a work that unlawfully use preexisting copyrighted material. In Pickett v. Prince (2000), the Seventh Circuit rejected an artist's attempt to enforce copyright in an unauthorized derivative creation, notwithstanding his own creative contributions.

[u/More_Willingness7101 → u/BillRuddickJrPhd]

Pretty sure it does however apply to original works like the artwork by Zeronis from 2013, which he said was his own personal work

[u/persin123]

We still caring about copyright?

[u/GroundbreakingTwo213 → u/persin123]

https://giphy.com/gifs/LyJ6KPlrFdKnK