this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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Fuck AI
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Kind of different, no? One is visual representation, and the other is impersonation?
They both use copyrighted material, whether directly or indirectly.
You can't copywrite a voice.
It may not be copyright persay, but multiple court rulings have ruled against being able to use another person's voice without permission. That said, I'm not sure that synthesized versions of a voice have been ruled upon yet.
Omto generate a synthesized voice that sounds like a specific person, one would need to parse copyrighted materials. That sounds really similar to what many are upset about regarding AI. Parsing copyrighted material to generate content with the intent of bringing in revenue.
per se*
Anyway, separate from copyright, there's a decent chance that the voice thing could become illegal/tortious on the basis of personality rights. But to my knowledge you're right, there haven't any serious court cases into the matter yet. The Johannson case had/has the potential to be a landmark in this area, but I can't find any information about its status; whether they settled out of court or are still going.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/james-earl-jones-voice-rights-ai
I only know of Tom Waits and he has a very unique voice. The average voice doesnt seem like its copyrightable and that's a good thing. It wouldnt take long for the tonal range to be saturated and the youtube take down request trolling to start.