MiHoYo AI media incident — Sep 2024

Genshin Impact developer miHoYo has successfully won a legal battle against an AI voice service provider that reproduced and sold the voices of 63 characters without permission. On September 10, 2024, the Pudong New Area People’s Court in Shanghai ordered the defendant to pay 750,000 Chinese Yuan, approximately $112,000, for copyright infringement and unfair competition.

What happened

The AI service allowed users to replace their own voices with those of Genshin Impact characters during real-time conversations. Beyond voice cloning, miHoYo alleged that the company utilized character artwork and animations in its advertisements, applied modified character faces to avatars, and enabled customers to preview dialogue before purchasing voice packs.

During the proceedings, the defendant argued that its models were based on material supplied by users and claimed that voice rights belonged to the original performers rather than the developer. However, voiceprint analysis presented to the court demonstrated that the cloned voices possessed "nearly identical characteristics" to the original character voices. Crucially, the defendant admitted that its model had been trained using a stolen minute of audio featuring the game's characters.

The court determined that the character designs were protected by copyright. Furthermore, it ruled that the distinctive voices functioned as a trademark developed through years of operation, and their unauthorized use constituted unfair competition. The AI provider was ordered to immediately cease all infringing activities and provide the court-mandated financial compensation.