Tokyo, Sept. 30 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo District Court on Wednesday found that human voices are subject to protection under publicity rights, which allow celebrities to monopolize the commercial value derived from their names and portraits. The court ruled on the first lawsuit in Japan over voice rights infringement involving generative artificial intelligence, which was brought by popular Japanese voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda over videos he claims to have been created using AI that mimicked his voice. Presiding Judge Aya Takahashi, however, dismissed Tsuda’s request for the operator of short-video platform TikTok to delete the videos in question as they have already been removed. The ruling was the first in Japan to recognize protection under publicity rights for a person’s voice. It said, “A person’s voice, similar to a likeness, is a symbol of the individual’s personality” and that unauthorized use may infringe such rights. Tsuda, known for voicing a popular character in Japanese anime series “Jujutsu Kaisen,” filed the suit in November last year, after unauthorized imitations of the voices of voice actors and singers had emerged as an issue. According to the complaint and other sources, 188 videos with narration mimicking Tsuda’s voice were posted by a specific account between July 2024 and September 2025. The account had about 210,000 followers, while the videos had about 1.47 million views on average, prompting comments that “Tsuda’s voice could be heard” and “it sounded like him.” The plaintiff argued that generative AI was used to deliberately create Tsuda’s “distinctive low, resonant voice.” He claimed the videos infringed his publicity rights and violated Japan’s unfair competition prevention law, which prohibits acts such as using a product indication without authorization. The platform operator claimed that “the poster had trained the generative AI on a friend’s voice.” It also said the videos and the account had already been deleted and sought dismissal on the grounds that Tsuda no longer had a legal interest in pursuing the case. In August, an expert panel of Japan’s Justice Ministry issued guidelines stating that voices, like portraits, can be protected under publicity rights. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
