Vocal Identity Under Siege by AI Voice Cloning Technologies
For legal scholars and policymakers, this paper offers a comparative analysis of legal frameworks to protect vocal identity from AI voice cloning, though it is an incremental review without empirical data.
This paper examines legal and ethical challenges posed by AI voice cloning, comparing three legal frameworks (right of publicity, personality rights, personal data protection) to address threats to vocal identity. It provides a foundation for applying existing legal approaches to generative AI voice cloning.
The advent of sophisticated AI-driven voice cloning has brought to the fore critical legal and ethical challenges regarding the protection of vocal identity. Prompted by recent controversies - including the striking resemblance between OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o voice and that of Scarlett Johansson - this article examines how generative AI technologies undermine the unique value of the human voice and further complicate the legal questions surrounding personality right. Through a comparative analysis, the paper evaluates three principal legal frameworks: the right of publicity, personality rights, and the personal data protection right. Each framework - rooted in different legal traditions o offers distinct strengths and limitations in addressing the threats posed by AI-generated voice cloning. By analysing these doctrines' scope, remedies, and posthumous protections, the study offers a foundation for understanding how existing legal approaches may be applied to the evolving challenges of vocal identity in the era of generative AI.