A verdict on whether a voice can be owned
The Tokyo District Court is due to rule on Wednesday in a case brought by the voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda against TikTok, AFP reports. It is believed to be the first suit in Japan to argue that a person’s vocal identity is protected against an AI-generated copy, and the ruling will be the country’s first judicial answer on a question its legislature has not settled.
Tsuda, 55, is among the most recognisable voices in Japanese animation, with leading roles in Jujutsu Kaisen and Yu-Gi-Oh!. The dispute concerns an anonymous TikTok account that posted videos about urban legends, the occult and conspiracy theories, narrated by what Tsuda says is a synthetic copy of his voice. Its profile picture resembled a Jujutsu Kaisen character he had voiced.
What each side argues
At its peak the account had more than 200,000 followers and earned roughly ¥500,000 a month, about $3,200, on view counts.
Tsuda’s lawyers told the court the account “only gained popularity because its dubious, sordid content was narrated by the attractive voice of a popular actor”, and framed the claim under publicity rights and unfair competition law.
TikTok’s position is that the narration is a generic male voice, that any resemblance to Tsuda is subjective at best, and that the platform merely hosted a forum where users posted creative content within the scope of free speech.
Those two arguments do not meet in the middle. One asks whether an ordinary listener would identify the speaker; the other asks whether a court can find infringement from a listener’s impression. Whichever the judge adopts becomes the template for every case that follows.
The ministry got there first
Japan’s justice ministry published guidelines last month setting out how existing law already covers a voice, treating it as the symbol of a person’s personality and reaching it through publicity rights and the rights against unauthorised use of one’s likeness. The guidelines are not binding, and Wednesday’s ruling will be the first test of whether a court reads the law the same way.
Support inside the profession has been public. Yuko Sasaki, executive director of the Japan Actors Union, said a performer’s voice is the result of years of rigorous training and apprenticeship. The actor Bin Shimada warned that the industry can be crushed if unrestricted AI voice cloning becomes commonplace on social media.
What to watch
Three things will decide how far the ruling travels. Whether the court finds the voice identifiable as Tsuda’s at all, since everything else follows from that. Whether liability attaches to the platform or only to the uploader, which is the difference between a judgment TikTok can absorb and one that changes how it moderates. And what remedy is ordered — damages alone leave cloning priced rather than prohibited.
Japan has no statute dedicated to synthetic voices. Until it has one, this ruling is the law on the point, and other performers in the same position will read it before deciding whether to sue.
