Every day, another generative AI provider discovers that pretending something you stole was always yours to begin with is an idea that is fundamentally incompatible with many copyright laws. That’s too bad for those generative AI providers, but, in this case, great news for Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse, which has just been awarded approximately $112,000 in a Shanghai court.

Automaton reports an unnamed “AI service provider” likewise located in Shanghai must now cough up 750,000 Chinese Yuan after wrongfully reproducing 63 Genshin Impact characters’ voices. The provider was ruled to have sold AI voice packs with “nearly identical characteristics” to those gacha game characters, and it used modified images of those anime babes and boyfriends to promote its already copyright-flouting packs.

Therefore, the Pudong New Area People’s Court of Shanghai decided the AI company was not only infringing on HoYoverse’s in-game content, but also on its character designs. It’s unjust competition, the court ordered, even though its voice packs seemed to have a much more intimate purpose than the average Genshin session – they appear to have presented slightly changed versions of Genshin characters as chatty virtual avatars.

In any case, HoYoverse has triumphed over delinquent generative AI this time around. However, its $112,000 reward is a much smaller payday than it was hoping for. The company behind Honkai: Star Rail and other anime wonders originally sued the AI company for 5 million Chinese Yuan, which totals to about $745,000, and it wanted an immediate injunction.

HoYoverse ended up with a smaller version of that punishment, but the People’s Court of Shanghai also demanded the AI company immediately stop its infringing behaviors.

Recently, the AI company withdrew its appeal on this judgement, making its $112,000 payment inevitable. Hopefully Grok can explain to it what went wrong.

Why so many game developers don’t want to use generative AI.