Actor Kenjiro Tsuda won a partial victory when a Tokyo district court said unauthorised use of a performer’s voice can infringe publicity rights, but it declined to order removal of the TikTok videos that sparked the case.
Tokyo District Court held that a human voice may be protected under Japan’s publicity rights when used to exploit its commercial appeal.
The court recognised voice protection but dismissed Tsuda’s request to force deletion because the user had already removed the videos.
The ruling is believed to be the first Japanese decision directly addressing legal protection for vocal identity against AI cloning.
Dick Thomas Johnson View image in fullscreen Tsuda Kenjiro's legal team argued that the content posted by the anonymous TikTok account was 'sordid'. The court dismissed Tsuda's request that the operator of TikTok remove the videos, noting that the user had deleted them soon after the suit was filed last November. "The unauthorised use of a performer's voice … can be considered an infringement on publicity rights," said the presiding judge, Aya Takahashi.
An actor's voice "is the result of years of rigorous training and apprenticeship", Yuko Sasaki, executive director of the Japan Actors Union said ahead of the ruling. Tsuda, 55, claimed that the 188 TikTok videos uploaded on an anonymous account between July 2024 and September last year had been narrated by a "deep" and "lustrous" voice that could only be his. The protection applies "if the purpose of using the voice is exclusively to take advantage of its commercial appeal", Takahashi said, describing a voice to be "as symbolic of one's personality as portraits are".
Kenjiro Tsuda's lawsuit was the first in Japan filed over a "voice rights" infringement using generative artificial intelligence.
Kenjiro Tsuda, an actor famed in Japan for his lustrous baritone, sued TikTok over an account that used an AI-generated replica of his voice in more than 180 videos. Tokyo District Court ruled this week that a persons' voice can be protected under Japan's publicity rights law . — Read the rest The post <a href="https:/
A Tokyo court ruled on Wednesday that Japanese law protects the human voice. Anime voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda had sued TikTok over videos he says used an AI clone of his voice. He won in part, as the court turned down his request to remove the videos, Agence France-Presse reported. AFP believes the lawsuit is […] This s
A Japanese court has ruled that voice is a protected publicity right in the first ruling of its kind in the country. On Wednesday, the Tokyo District Court ruled that voices are a protected publicity right in the first ruling of its kind in the country. However, the court dismissed the request by voice actor […]
The plaintiff, Kenjiro Tsuda, an actor said that the TikTok wrongfully profited by attracting viewers with his voice narrating in more than 180 videos, and asked for the material to be deleted
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