Last Friday, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Copyright held a press conference to make an announcement about protecting the intellectual property (IP) rights for manga titles. Due to the explosive growth of mobile games in China (over 20,000 in operation), there are now many unlicensed games based on popular Japanese manga, hence infringing the intellectual property (IP) rights.
From November, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Copyright will actively clamp down on such unlicensed games. The first wave of protected manga intellectual properties include One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball, and Gundam. Tencent signed a deal with Japan publisher Shueisha back in 2013, hence it is licensed to develop games based on Naruto and several other manga properties.
