A Japanese court has established a significant legal precedent by ruling that human voices are protected under publicity rights. The decision comes from a high-profile case involving actor Kenjiro Tsuda and a TikTok account accused of using artificial intelligence to clone his distinctive baritone.
On Wednesday, the Tokyo District Court determined that Tsuda’s voice, which he described as “lustrous,” was unlawfully used in AI-generated content. The judge stated that the right to control one’s voice is comparable to existing publicity rights, which protect individuals from the unauthorized exploitation of their identity and likeness.
Tsuda, best known for providing the voice of the character Kento Nanami in the popular anime series *Jujutsu Kaisen*, filed the lawsuit against the TikTok account. The verdict is being viewed as a landmark moment in the ongoing global debate over intellectual property and digital rights in the age of generative AI.
This is huge for voice actors globally. The entertainment industry needed this legal clarity sooner rather than later.
Shockingly reasonable. I never thought about voice cloning as a publicity rights violation before today.
Is this case-specific though? Does it apply to everyday users or just big tech companies cloning celebrities?
Finally! A court gets it. My voice is mine, not free content for developers to scrape.