Since it would be a “contractual obligation”, doesnt that mean that a person could theoretically negociate to not have any such clause in their contracts?
OK, this probably won’t stop anything, but let’s please not turn this into another argument over Derpygate and who or what started the whole disaster. I’m sure everyone already knows what happened and won’t be swayed by any arguments to the contrary.
To avoid a Vinylgate, they didn’t give her a voice (fyi: it was actually iTunes that started the whole issue, before soccermoms and short-sighted SJWs like Yaminolo then made it their pet goat/sacred cow), as well as the most common headcanon/fanon: her voice is Nowacking’s.
They couldn’t just hire Nowaking, for the same reasons that documentary that John financed and Tara cameo’ed in is the only time any of the VAs got involved in an unlicensed and publicly released work: legalese about official/unofficial endorsement. I hear it is to the effect of: if they did hire Nowacking, then she’d be contractually obligated to no longer VA for fan works (at least not without Hasbro’s permission).
(I also heard that) Nowacking therefore said that even if she was given an offer by Hasbro, she’d turn it down, as she prefers being active in the Brony community rather than beling legally locked out for a one-shot part in an episode.
Well, her role in EQG 2 was just like this: important secondary character, not one word. The EQG shorts also give her stuff to do but no lines. In one of them she even communicates with gestures instead of just never needing to talk, though it may be because she’s also listening to music. The strongest hints that she really can’t talk came from something of a somewhat lower canonicity value - the EQG 2 novelization has a moment where she texts someone who is right next to her instead of trying to talk. There’s also a UK comic where she talks only by gesturing, and her headphones are not on.
To consider it as canon as “Pinkie Pie can sometimes be excitable” you’d want an episode like “Flight to the Finish” that actually spells it out, or see EQG Vinyl using sign language, and that hasn’t happened yet, but there was more evidence for than against her being mute before this episode.