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VTuber Group A-SOUL May Be Tangled in Lawsuit With NetEase Over Dance Moves

By Johnson Ge
Aug. 10, 2022 updated 05:35

On August 7th, Eileen, one of the Vtubers in the group A-SOUL, danced to “Lou Yang Jiu Shi” (Meaning “The Old Event in Luoyang” in Mandarin) in her livestream birthday event. On August 9th, NetEase, the rights holder of the dance, claimed that they had never authorized anyone else for a commercial show, and they retained the right to pursue legal action.

A screenshot from the original dance video shared by the team of Dream Chaser: The Showbiz.A screenshot from the original dance video shared by the team of Dream Chaser: The Showbiz.

“Lou Yang Jiu Shi” is a collaborative dance between NetEase’s video game Dream Chaser: The Showbiz and national first-class actor Tang Shiyi released in December 2021. The dance video has 6.2 million views on Bilibili.

A screenshot on vup.darkflame.ga showing Eileen’s livestream made 1.79 million CNY profit.A screenshot on vup.darkflame.ga showing Eileen’s livestream made 1.79 million CNY profit.

According to Dream Chaser's official Weibo, they welcome anyone to dance for non-commercial purposes. However, the statistics website vup.darkflame.ga shows Eileen's livestream on August 7th made a profit of 1.79 million CNY (equals 264K USD). The group behind the Vtuber had not applied for authorization from NetEase or Tang Shiyi. Dream Chaser’s team says they understand the hard work Eileen put into this dance, and they are not seeking a large amount in compensation. But they will retain the right to pursue legal action and ask the companies behind this to be more respectful and cautious.

The screenshot of the Weibo announcement shows it has over 2000 comments and 14K likes.The screenshot of the Weibo announcement shows it has over 2000 comments and 14K likes.

At this moment, A-SOUL's Weibo account commented an apology to Dream Chaser's Weibo and the video of the unauthorized dance has been quietly deleted on Bilibili. There is no other official response from Eileen, A-SOUL, or the related companies.

The screenshot of the A-SOUL's comment shows they had made a criticism of the related "Tool Person".

Source: Weibo