Genshin Impact: Honey Impact stays online, mocks miHoYo for their ToS misuse
Honey Impact stays online, even after announcing that it would be deactivated the following day.
As we’ve previously informed, its owner received a message from miHoYo’s legal department, asking for the immediate closure of the site for infringing their Terms of Service, but it seems that miHoYo was on the wrong side here.
MiHoYo tried to enforce the website shutdown by a wrong take on their own Terms of Service, which couldn’t be used on a DMCA.
As a result, an angered Honey decided to cut all ties with the Chinese company and will be removing any copyrights related to them.
Why would the website be shut down?
Genshin Impact producer miHoYo claimed that by using the game’s assets and images on the website, Honey Impact would be infringing the company terms.
The problem is that would, as Honey previously mentioned in his post about the notice, imply that any content creator using anything related to Genshin Impact would be subject to the same treatment if miHoYo decided to pick on them.
The main reason for the notice was all the data on unreleased content that Honey Impact has, which miHoYo strongly dislikes, as we’ve seen by their recent crackdown on leakers.
READ MORE: Genshin Impact: Honey Impact database soon to be taken down
But instead of asking specifically for the removal of the content leaks, they decided to try to shutdown the whole website.
And why does Honey Impact stays online?
Because the DMCA was based on a wrong assumption. The Terms of Service are an agreement between the player and the company regarding the game services.
They could ban Honey’s Genshin account, but couldn’t make him deactivate his website based on it.
A Beta tester has to agree on not spreading confidential information about future updates, but any other players haven’t agreed specifically to that.
That includes you, me, and Honey, who only updates the site with information that other people already leaked.
On top of that, miHoYo demanded the shutdown of all the Honey Hunter domains, which also includes the non-related Monster Hunter World fansite. Honey Impact is just a subdomain contained in it.
Honey’s update on the post clarifies the situation and tells why miHoYo demands were lacking a real argument.
READ MORE: Genshin Impact: Leakers are starting to retire
What happens to the database now?
From now on, Honey Impact stays online, but we don’t know for how long. The domain has been migrated to a DMCA-free host, where the database is supposedly free from any similar attempts.
All watermarks will also be removed, and no copyrights will be attributed to miHoYo from now on.
The company may attempt to talk with Honey and try to reach an agreement about the leaks, but seeing how the situation scaled pretty badly, that’s very unlikely.
Honey Impact is not even attributing the rights for miHoYo about their content. The website is actually mocking them:
While this is a good punch on a big company that tried to get greedy, that’s very disrespectful, and we might see some new chapters on this drama in the near future. While we lost the leaks, at least we’ve kept the database.
READ MORE: Genshin Impact: How to get Aloy on PC and Mobile platforms
Genshin Impact is currently on its 2.1 version, “Floating World Under the Moonlight”, featuring the conclusion of the Archon Quests in Inazuma, a new Weekly Boss, 2 new World Bosses, new characters, and two new areas for exploration.
You can play the game for free on mobile devices including Android, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, and Pc on both miHoYo’s official launcher and Epic Games Store. A Nintendo Switch version is stated to be in development.
