Japan Court Rules AI Voice Clone of Voice Actor Violates Rights

A Tokyo court has ruled in favor of famous voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda in his lawsuit against TikTok, finding that an AI imitation of his deep baritone voice violated his rights. It is the first time a Japanese court has confirmed that a person's voice is protected by law.

Tsuda, who has worked as a voice actor for over 30 years and voiced characters like Seto Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh!, said an anonymous TikTok account used AI-cloned versions of his voice as narration in videos uploaded between July 2024 and late last year. The court partly accepted his claims, but did not order TikTok to remove the videos because the account had already been deleted.

The court stated that using an actor's voice without permission should be considered an infringement of portrait rights. TikTok argued the videos used only a "generic male voice." Japan is actively promoting AI development, but anime voice actors worry that creators lack enough protection as their voices and likenesses are often used to train AI.