"Mildom" bans distribution of Cygames game titles such as Grubbles and Shadba! OPENREC.tv?

Cygames, Inc. has announced that it will ban the posting and distribution of Cygames' game titles on Mildom, a live-streaming platform operated by DouYu Japan Co.

The company will also be removing videos that have already been uploaded.

Game Titles Subject to Distribution Ban

The game titles subject to distribution bans and removals are as follows

• Granblue Fantasy
• Granblue Fantasy Versus
• Rage of Bahamut
• Princess Connect!
• Shadowverse
• World Flipper

Granblue Fantasy Versus" is one of the most popular titles, and was selected as the main title of the EVO despite its recent release.

Why was it banned? What is "milldam" in the first place?

The official Twitter account of "milldom" tweeted the following

OPENREC.tv, which is operated by CyberZ, a CyberAgent group company like Cygames, has stated the following as a factor

OPENREC.tv is a game distribution platform and competitor of Milldom.
Milldam's announcement has led some users to ask, "Did they exclude Milldam, a competing service? "I'm not sure," they said.

About "Mildom

Mildom's operator, DouYu Japan, is owned by Tencent, a major Chinese IT company that develops messenger applications such as WeChat.

DouYu (https://www.douyu.com/ ) is a popular game distribution platform in China, also known as the Chinese version of Twitch.
DouYu Japan Inc. is the Japanese subsidiary of DouYu and is a joint venture between China (DouYu) and Japan (Mitsui & Co.).

株式会社DouYu Japan

Tencent has also partnered with many Japanese game makers, most recently acquiring Platinum Games.

CEO and CAO Taiyo Nagase and COO Sun Hui commented on the job site as follows

─ Comments by Mr. Taiyo Nagase, CEO and CAO

We started with 800 million yen in capital, but this is trial capital for six months, and we are prepared to inject funds in the tens of billions of yen over the medium to long term. DouYu, our parent company, has just raised 80 billion yen on NASDAQ, and Mitsui plans to continuously invest funds to increase the number of "Mildom" performers and users. The business model of monetizing "throwaway money" and "fan clubs" has also been successful in China.

株式会社 DouYu Japan

Mr. Sun Yu, COO of DouYu Japan Inc.

With "Mildom", anyone can easily live stream games. For those who meet certain requirements, "Mildom" will pay an hourly rate of 500 yen. If you become a popular performer, you will sign an exclusive contract with us and start earning a monthly income.

株式会社 DouYu Japan

With such huge capital, the company has an image that its return to streamers is outstanding compared to competing services.

In fact, many streamers have migrated to "Mildom" as their distribution platform, and many have migrated from OPENREC.tv.

The job description on the DouYu Japan Inc. recruiting page also states, "Identify suitable distributor candidates and promote collaboration with distributors. The job description on the recruitment page of DouYu Japan Inc. also states, "Identifying suitable distributor candidates and promoting collaboration with distributors.

With this in mind, some have asked, "Did Cygames ban distribution in order to prevent people from leaving OPENREC.tv? Some say "Mildom may not have originally obtained permission from the IP holders. " some say.

Is distributing games on "Mildom" at your own risk?

Mildom

The distributor agreement of "Mildom" states the following.

With respect to all content to be distributed through this Service, the Distributor shall, in advance, properly process the rights necessary for the implementation of this Service and the granting of the license to the Operator as set forth in the following paragraph with all rights holders who are required to process the rights.

The Distributor shall settle all disputes with third parties arising out of or in connection with the implementation of the Transmission by the Distributor at its own responsibility and expense. The Operator shall not be liable for any disputes, etc. arising out of or in connection with the Distributor's implementation of the Transmission, and the Distributor shall indemnify the Operator for any and all costs incurred in connection with any compensation or other measures taken by the Operator at its discretion to recover rights and benefits from a third party.

Mildom配信者規約

The above is a part of the distributor agreement, but in short, distributors must obtain permission directly from the IP holder to distribute their games, and must compensate "Mildom" in the event of any problems, such as compensation.

Because of these terms and conditions, it is expected that they were originally distributing Cygames' game titles without a license.

A notice from Cygames also states, "We have confirmed that there was a problem with content being posted without official permission for the use of game titles provided by our company. " We have confirmed that there was a problem in which content was being posted without the official permission for the use of our game titles.

Does Cygames only allow the use of its own platforms?

株式会社サイバーエージェント

In this case, Cygames "Content is being posted without official permission. states that the company has been in violation of the law, and Mildam "The relationship between Cygames and CyberZ (OpenRec) is the main reason for this." states that.

This has led to the misconception that Cygames only allows its own game titles on its own platforms, but the company does not claim copyright infringement by selling Shadowverse strategy articles for a fee on "note" only.

Only "note" allows paid sales of strategy articles, and " Ameblog " and " REQU " operated by CyberAgent, Inc. Psygames does not permit the paid sale of strategy articles on other companies' platforms.

The fact that Psygames only allows the use of its products on the platforms of other companies does not seem to indicate that the company is so concerned about retaining its own group.

At this point, we do not know what kind of discussions took place, but it is important for platform operators to obtain permission from IP holders and for streamers to read the terms and conditions of the platform before selecting a service to use.

In particular, those who start distributing games with the aim of monetizing them may suddenly find their source of income cut off, so be careful when selecting a platform and also check the distribution terms and conditions of the game titles and game makers you wish to distribute.