AI voice clones face fresh legal threat after landmark Tokyo court ruling

A recent Tokyo court ruling has brought fresh legal challenges to the world of AI voice clones. The high-profile case involved anime voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda, who successfully argued that the human voice is legally protected in Japan. Tsuda, known for his roles in popular franchises like Jujutsu Kaisen and Yu-Gi-Oh!, had taken TikTok to court over unauthorized videos featuring an AI-generated version of his baritone voice.

Although the court did not grant his request to remove the videos, it acknowledged that unauthorized use of a performer's voice can be considered an infringement on their publicity rights. This landmark decision marks a partial victory for Tsuda and signals a potential shift in how existing laws apply to AI-generated likenesses.

The lawsuit is believed to be the country's first of its kind, seeking to defend an individual's vocal identity against AI-generated copies. Despite the ruling, TikTok disputed Tsuda's claim, arguing that the voice used in the videos was merely a generic male voice and that any similarity was subjective. The case highlights the difficulties of proving vocal similarity in court, as Tsuda's lawyers used deep-learning models to analyze the recordings and compare them with his own voice.

This legal development comes at a time when Japan is grappling with how existing laws should apply to AI-generated likenesses, with the Justice Ministry issuing non-binding guidance in August stating that a person's voice can be protected under existing publicity rights. Japanese voice actors have also been campaigning against the unauthorized use of AI to reproduce performers' voices, recognizing the potential threats posed by this emerging technology.