
People try out phones at a Xiaomi store in Beijing on Feb. 23, 2019. Photo: VCG
Xiaomi has been accused yet again of stealing intellectual property, just days after its Mimoji virtual avatars drew comparisons with Apple’s Memoji.
The company sold smartphone icons and wallpapers copied without permission from illustrators’ and designers’ work, a Weibo user alleged in a post on Saturday.
The widely circulated post included images pointing out the resemblance between some of Xiaomi’s wallpapers and paintings by anime artists, as well as screenshots of a chat with someone claiming to be the creator of the paintings, who said the images had been used by Xiaomi without permission. The Weibo account that published the post has since been deleted.
The smartphone-maker responded on Sunday that some of wallpapers and icons, which had been uploaded by a third-party provider, were indeed unauthorized copies of artists’ work. Xiaomi said it would stop selling these images and would tighten its vetting process for uploaded images.