Two Voice Actors Are Suing The AI Firm Lovo Over Stolen Voices
Image Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Generative AI has been a hot-button subject in the arts for quite some time. The main point of contention has been the collection and use of data from artists without their consent. This is exactly why voice actors Paul Lehrman and Linnea Sage are suing the AI firm Lovo; they allege that the firm commissions actors under false pretenses to train and sell an AI-generated version of their voice.
In 2020, Paul Lehrman recorded for a job in which he thought he was providing one-off voice samples. He was contacted on the Fiverr platform by an account named “User25199087.” When he asked how these samples would be used, the account told him that they would be used “for academic research purposes only” and that “the scripts would not be used for anything else.” Lehrman was paid $1,200 for the job.
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However, two years later, the actor heard his voice narrating a YouTube video and then in a podcast in June of 2023, neither of which he remembered recording for. Linnea Sage got hired for a similar job in 2019 to produce “test scripts for radio ads” that she was told “would not be disclosed externally.” She was paid $400 for this job. Sage says she discovered her voice in a recording of a Lovo investor meeting demonstrating their technology.
This led to Lehrman and Sage suing Lovo, seeking class-action status to include others “whose voices and/or identities were stolen and used,” according to the complaint filed Thursday in the Southern District Court of New York. Lovo advertises AI-generated voice technology for use in education, marketing, and product demos. However, the complaint states that the advertising of such voices implies “that each voice-over actor has agreed to Lovo’s terms and conditions for customers to be able to access that actor’s voice.” However, for Lehrman, Sage, and any other voice talent “who have not agreed to Lovo’s terms, the continued unauthorized use of Plaintiffs’ voices is theft of service and misappropriation.”
The suit is seeking $5 million in damages and follows a wave of other such complaints regarding generative AI, including Scarlett Johannson and her suit against OpenAI for appropriation of her voice without her consent. Hopefully, these lawsuits set important precedents regarding the use of AI in the arts.
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Source: CNN
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