HoYoverse Wins Lawsuit Over Honkai: Star Rail Leaks — Insider to Pay Substantial Fine

HoYoverse Wins Lawsuit Over Honkai: Star Rail Leaks — Insider to Pay Substantial Fine

A streamer who published leaked content for Honkai: Star Rail has been ordered by a court to pay the game's publisher, Cognosphere (HoYoverse), $16,500 in compensation and to cover legal costs. The company had initially sought $156,600 from him.

The lawsuit was prompted by Alfredo Lopez's stream on a Discord channel with 12,000 subscribers, where he showed the not-yet-released character, Castoria. The publisher valued this act of "willful copyright infringement" at the maximum possible $150,000 plus $6,600 for legal expenses.

Lopez did not contest the lawsuit, leading to a default judgment. Notably, the publisher discovered and submitted to the case Lopez's own discussion of this very lawsuit on Discord after it was filed, which further confirmed his awareness of it.