Speaker A
A tech company stole our voices, made clones of them as AI clones and sold them possibly hundreds of thousands of times.
Voice artists Paul and Linnea sue Lovo for cloning their voices without consent, raising legal issues on AI and personality rights.
Key Takeaways
- AI companies can clone voices without explicit consent, leading to legal disputes over personality rights.
- Licenses for voice recordings must be specific and respected to prevent misuse in AI applications.
- Artists and voice actors are increasingly fighting back against unauthorized use of their work by AI firms.
- The case underscores the evolving legal landscape around AI, intellectual property, and personal identity.
- Transparency and consent are crucial when using human voices for AI-generated content.
Summary
- Voiceover actors Paul and Linnea discovered their voices were cloned and sold by AI company Lovo without their permission.
- They recorded generic scripts for a freelancing site, unaware their voices would be used for AI voice cloning.
- Paul and Linnea filed a class action lawsuit against Lovo for stealing their voices and identities without proper consent or compensation.
- The legal case centers on rights of publicity, where a person's voice is considered part of their personality, not copyright.
- The couple's limited licenses for voice use were allegedly violated by Lovo's broader commercial exploitation.
- Lovo co-founder Tom Lee publicly explained their voice cloning technology but the company did not respond to BBC interview requests.
- The voices have been removed from Lovo's website, but ads with Paul’s cloned voice still exist online.
- This lawsuit is part of a growing trend of artists suing AI companies to protect their creative work and livelihoods.
- The case highlights ethical and legal challenges posed by AI technologies in creative industries.
- Paul and Linnea emphasize the need to stand up against exploitation disguised as innovation.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker B
This is Paul and Linnea, voiceover actors based in New York City.
Speaker B
Last summer, they were in the car listening to a podcast about the Hollywood writer strike and how it might affect VO artists like them, when something strange happened.
Speaker C
The specific episode, the host was going to interview an AI entity about the potential harm that AI will have on the entertainment industry.
Speaker C
And he is interviewing my voice.
Speaker D
Good morning, is it okay with you if I call you Poe?
Speaker E
Absolutely, Billy, feel free to call me Poe.
Speaker E
As a generative AI technology.
Speaker C
How disturbing and terrifying that moment was is hard to articulate.
Speaker A
I spent six hours on the internet that night.
Speaker A
Searching as many text to speech products that I could find and listening to all of the voices that they offered until I stumbled upon Lovo.
Speaker B
Lovo are this company, a Berkeley-based text-to-speech platform.
Speaker F
And one of dozens of synthetic voices like this one.
Speaker G
Or maybe this one.
Speaker H
Or this one, will read it back.
Speaker B
But once she started poking around the company's site, Linnea said she found an AI voice that sounded just like Paul.
Speaker A
I mean, I I was stunned, I couldn't believe it, and out of pure curiosity, I just started listening to the other voices thinking, maybe I'll recognize someone I know, a colleague from the voiceover world, and that's when I stumbled upon my voice.
Speaker B
So in May, Paul and Linnea filed a class action lawsuit against Lovo, saying the company illegally stole their voices and identities without permission or proper compensation.
Speaker B
So, how did this even happen?
Speaker A
So, in October of 2019, a freelancing site that I'm on where I regularly procure voiceover work, reached out to me asking if I would record some scripts for them.
Speaker I
The couple say the scripts were generic radio ads, ones the user said would never be broadcast, so they didn't need extensive usage rights.
Speaker A
They were quite generic, you know, do you need a dry cleaner in Idaho, we're here right around the corner, your your neighborhood dry cleaner.
Speaker I
Paul says about six months later, he got a similar request to record dozens of generic sounding radio scripts.
Speaker I
In messages the couple shared with the BBC, you can see the user appears to say the audio will be used for research into speech synthesis.
Speaker I
Paul follows up to clarify whether the audio will be used for anything other than your specific research.
Speaker I
In the next message, the user then appears to confirm the audio will not be used for anything else.
Speaker C
And then I I asked, will you be changing the order of my audio or using it in any separate way, and they said no.
Speaker I
As for Linnea, she says the user she spoke with deleted part of the conversation, but in the communications that remain, it appears the user presents the scripts as test radio ads, ones that will not be disclosed externally.
Speaker I
The couple said there was no formal contract, just these messages they've shared with us, we can't, however, verify if these are the complete conversations.
Speaker I
In both cases, though, the couple recorded the audio, sent the files, and moved on.
Speaker J
We only need a person to read 50 sentences, and I believe that's something an average Joe could do.
Speaker I
The voice you're hearing is Tom Lee, co-founder of Lovo, speaking on a business podcast about how their voice cloning technology works.
Speaker J
We can capture the tone, the character, the style, the phonemes, and how even, you know, if you have an accent, we can even capture that as well.
Speaker I
We reached out to Lovo on multiple occasions to request an interview with Mr. Lee, we also asked for any correspondence or conversations they may have with Paul and Linnea, they did not respond to any of our messages.
Speaker K
So, what's going on in the voice actor cases are a field of law known as rights of publicity.
Speaker K
The thing that's being copied is not a piece of copyrighted work, but a piece of someone's personality, right, and so then we get these personality rights or rights of publicity, where the allegation is not you copied my song or you copied my drawing, but rather you copied my voice.
Speaker I
Professor Garcia also says the licenses the couple granted the user who contacted them may have also been violated.
Speaker K
Licenses are permission for a very specific and narrow use, right, I might give you a license that you can swim in my swimming pool one afternoon, but that doesn't mean you can come whenever you want and have a party in my swimming pool, right, that would exceed the terms of the license, and I think that would be the argument for these voice actors here.
Speaker I
The voices have since been removed from the company's website, but an ad still exists online where Paul's supposed voice clone can be heard.
Speaker I
So, I sat down with the couple to take a listen myself.
Speaker E
Introducing Jenny by Lovo, artificial intelligence that makes it fast and easy to create voiceovers for marketing, e-learning, documentaries, animations, games, audiobooks, and more.
Speaker C
Introducing Jenny by Lovo, artificial intelligence that makes it fast and easy to create voiceovers for marketing, e-learning, documentaries, animations, games, audiobooks, and more.
Speaker A
When we all thought of AI in the future, we thought, AI is going to be folding our laundry and making us dinner, we didn't think AI is going to replace human beings creative endeavors.
Speaker I
This case is just one of many being brought against AI companies by artists who don't want to lose control of their work and livelihoods, and more are likely to come.
Speaker C
We really have no other choice but to stand up and give our energy to this, because when companies develop technology that way, it's not innovation anymore, it's just exploitation.
Topics:voice cloningAI voice technologyvoice actors lawsuitrights of publicityLovo AIvoiceover industryartificial intelligenceintellectual propertyvoice identity theftcreative rights
