As the challenges and developments brought by artificial intelligence evolve, recent news has included celebrities – such as Hugh Bonneville, Nicola Coughlan and Matt Lucas – becoming concerned about voice theft.
Pippa Aitken is a Senior Associate specialising in Intellectual Property in the Commercial Team at Sintons. She explains the issues well-known people can face:
“Celebrities’ voices are widely available online, making them easy targets for voice cloning. A cloned celebrity voice could be used in advertisements, social media campaigns or political messaging without consent. Celebrities often attract media attention because their voices have significant commercial value, however, the risks associated with voice cloning is increasingly affecting ordinary people as well.”
As Pippa says, voice cloning isn’t something solely restricted to those in the public eye: “Ordinary people may face risks in the form of fraud and identity theft. Modern AI systems can generate convincing voice clones from only short audio samples, many of which are easily available through videos, voicemail recordings or social media posts. Criminals can then use these clones to impersonate family members or colleagues in an attempt to obtain money or sensitive information.”
Currently, as Pippa explains, the law doesn’t have a distinct way of safeguarding voices. “Individuals are protected indirectly through a combination of existing legal rights rather than any specific ‘voice ownership’ right.”
As AI advances, Pippa outlines the challenges of protecting an individual’s voice under existing law and guidance: “The difficulty is that UK law does not recognise a standalone property or personality right in a person’s voice. As a result, victims of voice cloning must piece together claims using copyright, data protection, passing off, defamation or other legal actions, none of which were specifically designed to deal with AI-generated replicas.”
She adds, “The UK Government has indicated that it is considering these issues, although no dedicated legislation has yet been introduced.”
For more information about Intellectual Property and the Commercial Team at Sintons, click here.
