Court Decision
An anime voice actor was partly successful in his case against an anonymous TikTok account.
A Tokyo court has sided with a Japanese voice actor who claimed a TikTok account had used AI to clone his baritone delivery, ruling that the human voice is protected by law in a landmark case.
Case Background
Kenjiro Tsuda is a prominent anime voice actor who has starred in numerous movies, series and video games across his career. Tsuda asserted that the voice of the narrator of several TikTok videos uploaded to an anonymous account between July 2024 and the second half of last year was cloned from his own voice. While he was partially victorious in the case, his request to order TikTok to remove the videos in question was dismissed, as the offending account has already been deleted.
In its decision, the court said that using the voice of an actor without permission should be deemed an infringement on their publicity rights, as reported by AFP. This was the first case of its kind in Japan.
Arguments and Defense
Tsuda argued that the tell was the distinct nature of the AI-generated vocal delivery in the narration. The actor's legal team said the account's popularity—reaching more than 200,000 followers—was due to the novelty of its content being narrated by a prominent star. TikTok responded in court by arguing that a generic male voice whose similarity to Tsuda's was debatable was used in the narration, according to court records seen by AFP.
Broader Implications
The Japanese government has pursued a pro-AI national strategy, but there is growing concern among creators that more needs to be done to protect their work and likeness from being ingested by this technology. Last year, Japan's government asked OpenAI to ensure that content deemed irreplaceable was not used to train generators in ways that violate copyright.
