HoYoverse wins lawsuit over unauthorized AI voice…
HoYoverse successfully sued an AI voice-changing app operator for unauthorized cloning of 63 Genshin Impact character voices
- Incident date
- Sep 2026
- Target
- HoYoverse
HoYoverse has secured a significant legal victory in Shanghai against the operator of an AI voice-changing application that utilized unauthorized voice packs for 63 Genshin Impact characters. This landmark ruling marks Shanghai’s first unfair competition case involving AI voice imitation, establishing a critical precedent for intellectual property rights in the age of artificial intelligence.
What happened
The dispute began in 2025 when HoYoverse discovered that an AI software provider was offering paid voice-changing services that allowed users to mimic the specific vocal characteristics of 63 characters from the game Genshin Impact. The application also utilized official game character imagery to promote the service. HoYoverse initiated legal action, arguing that the software caused auditory confusion and misappropriated the unique vocal identities of its intellectual property.
During the trial, the defendant argued that the voice transformations were the result of AI large model training and suggested that voice rights should reside solely with individual voice actors. However, a judicial voiceprint analysis determined that the AI-generated samples were effectively identical to the original game character voices. The defendant ultimately admitted to using approximately one minute of unauthorized audio from the game, mixed with other samples, to train their AI model.
The Pudong New Area People's Court ruled that the characters' vocal features serve as a commercial identifier linked to the game's pre-set attributes and skills, rather than the personal creative input of the voice actors. The court found that the unauthorized use of these assets constituted unfair competition. The operator was ordered to immediately cease the practice and pay HoYoverse RMB 750,000 (approximately US$105,000) in damages. This ruling aligns with new guidance from the Supreme People's Court, which emphasizes that unauthorized use of voice data for AI training to imitate specific identities infringes upon legal rights.