The Tokyo District Court ruled on Wednesday (30) that a performer's voice enjoys legal protection in Japan under publicity rights. It is the country's first court decision on voice cloning by artificial intelligence, and it grew out of a lawsuit brought by voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda against TikTok.
"The unauthorised use of a performer's voice can be considered an infringement on publicity rights", wrote Judge Aya Takahashi. In its reasoning, the court described a voice as being as symbolic of a person's personality as a portrait, and held that protection applies when the purpose of using that voice is exclusively to exploit its commercial appeal.
A win on the principle, not on the remedy
Tsuda, known in Japan for his deep baritone and for work on "Jujutsu Kaisen" and "Yu-Gi-Oh!", sued the platform over an anonymous account that posted AI-narrated videos about urban legends and conspiracy theories, using a voice he maintained was his.
The judge, however, did not order the material taken down: the account had already deleted the videos months earlier. Tsuda therefore leaves with the precedent rather than with the relief he asked for.
By his lawyers' estimate, the account had more than 200,000 followers and earned upwards of 500,000 yen a month — roughly 3,200 dollars. TikTok's defence argued that this was a "generic male voice" and that any resemblance to Tsuda's was subjective.
What the profession had been asking for
The decision lands in the middle of a Japan Actors Union campaign, called "No More", against the unauthorised replication of voices by AI. Yuko Sasaki, an executive at the union, said a professional voice is the result of years of rigorous training and apprenticeship, and that the spread of automated cloning could shrink the profession.
The point the court settled is narrow but new: it does not ban imitation as such, only the unauthorised commercial use of a recognisable voice. In Japan, where animation dubbing is an industry built on marketable names, that use is exactly what was in dispute.
With information from Malay Mail, The Star and the Philippine Star.
