It recently became known about another lawsuit involving miHoYo (HoYoverse). This time, the lawyers for the creators of Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero targeted not insiders, but the developers of an AI service.
The reason for the lawsuit was the illegal use of character voices from Genshin Impact. According to the presented claim, the voices of 63 characters were illegally reproduced; clients of this service could create custom voiceovers.
The service developers also used Genshin Impact character models and images for promotion: portraits were used as avatars for “voice packs.” Before purchasing, clients could listen to the lines.
Initially, miHoYo's lawyers demanded compensation of 5 million Chinese yuan (about 746 thousand US dollars).
Representatives of the service claimed that the technology used was based on third-party models, and the generated voices varied depending on the user's input data. They also noted that the rights to the voices belonged to the voice actors themselves, and therefore they should defend these rights.
The analysis showed that the voices of Genshin Impact characters and the result of the AI service's work demonstrated “practically identical characteristics.” The defendant also admitted in court that they used a voice from Genshin as material for training the model.
During the proceedings, the court established that over the years of Genshin Impact's existence, character voices have become a distinctive sign that allows consumers to identify the source (this game). The use of such voices could create a false impression that the project is official and associated with miHoYo.
The court ordered the creators of the AI service to cease illegal activities (using voices and materials from the game) and to pay the creators of Genshin Impact about 112 thousand dollars.