Teddy Liu, Greater China communications director of Blizzard, told Xinhua on Thursday that he had not received any official information on the suit, and had only read media reports.

He said he could not comment at the moment.

Damages could be calculated either by the defendant's interests that were illegally gained via copyright infringement or by the plaintiff's losses according to Chinese law, said the statement from Founder Electronics.

It claimed WoW had 7.5 million active player accounts and hence the infringement of copyright was "serious".

"The lost earnings of one billion yuan was a conservative estimate," the statement said.

I'd love to know how they arrive at these numbers, and I'm curious to see what the outcome of the suit is - these 'conservative' totals for damages seem rather inflated at best, but then, I'm not a lawyer.

Chinese firm making "interim" damages claim for 100 mln yuan from Blizzard [Xinhua]

Ok, so we know that lawyers can be, at times, a big overzealous in their hunt for copyright infringement and we now know a one-off gift of a Munny that resembles a Gears of War character is A-OK.

But what about original art inspired by a video game? I Am 8-Bit has a whole gallery filled with that sort of thing, but when Kotaku resident artist Pavel Dolgov created a "one-of-a-kind, hand painted, acrylic on canvas" inspired by Gears of War and posted it on his site he received a warning about IP infringement from Epic's general counsel. He was told he had to take down the painting from the site and has to either destroy it or send it to Epic Games.

Sheesh guys, there are better ways to buy a painting. Brian Crecente

Ed's note: In case it wasn't obvious, Dolgov makes a living selling his art.

Thank god for copyright infringement because it gives us a chance to see things like this. All I can think of is that scene in Alien Resurrection where Sigourney Weaver finds that lab full of failed clone Ripleys and there's that one really messed up one that's still alive that begs her to "Please kill me!". At least Yoshi got away relatively unscathed.

Poor Mario...

[via Digg]

Surely that plumbing business is suffering due to huge time sink of saving that pea-brained princess (and playing soccer and baseball and dance-dancing and whatever else Mario is up to these days), as that lovable portly Italian is investing in the Thai travel sector.

Looks like he's also supplementing his income with hourly internet access and motorbike rentals. Or maybe, just maybe, someone in Thailand is less concerned about copyright infringement than they are with coming up with an original name for their fly-by-night travel shack.

Mario Travel [Flickr]