The Pudong New Area People’s Court of Shanghai recently ordered an undisclosed Shanghai-based AI service provider to pay 750,000 Chinese Yuan (roughly $112K USD) in damages to Genshin Impact developer miHoYo for unauthorized use of the game’s character voices (source: The Paper). The ruling concerns a voice conversion service that allowed users to change their voices in real-time using voice packs from the company.
According to miHoYo, the AI provider reproduced the voices of 63 Genshin Impact characters without permission and sold voice packs featuring those characters. It also created and published promotional videos for the service using Genshin Impact character images and animations, used modified images of the characters as avatars for the voice packs, and allowed users to preview character dialogue.
miHoYo sought 5 million Chinese Yuan ($746K USD) in damages alongside an immediate injunction, arguing that these actions constituted copyright infringement and unfair competition.
The AI provider countered that its voice conversion service was based on large-scale AI training models, meaning the resulting voices varied depending on the input of the user. It also argued that rights related to the voices belonged to the voice actors themselves, and that the actors should therefore be the ones to assert any such rights.
However, voiceprint analysis found that the vocal characteristics from the AI service and the character voices from Genshin Impact exhibited “nearly identical characteristics.” Furthermore, the defendant also admitted in court that it had mixed one minute’s worth of audio from a Genshin Impact character with other materials to train the voice conversion model.
The court determined that Genshin Impact’s character designs and in-game footage constituted artistic works/audiovisual works, and that the defendant’s unauthorized use of these elements therefore constituted copyright infringement.
Additionally, it was ruled that, due to Genshin Impact’s long-term operation, the character voices functioned as a distinguishing mark that allowed consumers to identify their source. It was determined that the defendant’s actions exceeded the reasonable scope of imitation and constituted unfair competition (i.e., creating an imitation that could lead consumers to mistake the service for an official product).
The court ultimately ordered the AI service provider to cease the infringing acts immediately and pay roughly $112K USD to miHoYo. While the first-instance judgement was handed on June 30, it recently became final after the defendant withdrew its appeal.
