- Hasbro has launched a new studio, Sixth Wall, aiming at preserving the IP of both the company’s own characters and third-parties interested in using a new piece of technology
- Called Behavioral Licensing, the solution is offered by Sixth Wall’s so-called CharacterOS software, and will guarantee that IP characters appear in an approved context
- Sixth Wall confirmed that it will use real voice actors who will be compensated to create the authentic identities of the licensed characters.
Hasbro has dropped a piece of news that will have AI luddites and anyone with the instinct to doubt a corporation’s good intentions in developing a new productivity technology flinch.
The toymaker and owner of Wizards of the Coast has announced a new venture with ElevenLabs, launching Sixth Wall, a brand-new AI studio, which introduces the concept of “Behavioral Licensing.”
The idea behind the concept is simple, argues Hasbro, preserve the manner in which a popular character “thinks, speaks, and acts,” rather than “identifying a character by how they appear.”
Through Sixth Wall’s work, Hasbro believes it can establish a character canon that retains their personality and voice, as well as protect against misuse and misrepresentation.
This will be implemented through a specific software-based solution, CharacterOS, and will only be based on authorized source material and human voice performances, with all human talent duly compensated. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said:
“CharacterOS is compelling because it unlocks a bigger creative canvas while addressing a real challenge in AI: the unauthorized use of content. It gives brands a trusted way to bring characters into new AI-enabled platforms without losing what makes them authentic.”
AI has been a point of contention for many consumers, with followers of popular IPs such as Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering openly warning the studio that they would boycott products featuring AI artwork or where the technology is used to generate narratives.
Games Workshop, another IP giant, has also publicly vowed not to use AI to generate text or art for its highly successful miniatures wargames. Hasbro is now preparing to take 12 of its characters into Behavioral Licensing territory, including Megatron, Cobra Commander, Mr. Potato Head, the cast of Clue, and Optimus Prime.
Hasbro will also accept partnership requests for its Behavioral Licensing concept, possibly looking to help other companies preserve their characters.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sixth Wall CEO Roberta Thomson elaborated further on Behavioral Licensing, arguing that the current model of going after IP infringement relied on a “whack-a-mole approach” where a company such as Hasbro would have to send cease-and-desist letters and turn to the courts to protect its intellectual property, proving difficult and potentially inefficient.
Instead, argues Thomson, Behavioral Licensing offers a way for interested parties to come to the company and license the characters directly, so that they appear in what she describes as “a context that we already approve of and feel comfortable with.”
Thomson has doubled down on human participation in making these characters feel authentic, arguing that real voice actors were “crucial” for the creation of the characters under the Behavioral Licensing platform.
“We could have decided to move forward with synthetic voices, and all of the models give a good approximation of those voices because they’re out there, but it didn’t feel like the right thing to do,” Thomson explained.