A Chinese court this week began a trial to decide whether an imitation of someone’s voice using artificial intelligence (AI) can be considered their original voice, which determines ownership rights over content.
The complainant is a vocal artist named Yin, who discovered last May that her voice was being used in many audiobooks circulating on the Internet without her signing a contract or giving permission, the official newspaper reported in the English-language China Daily.
Investigation revealed that the offenders used an artificial intelligence application to reproduce their voice and sell the rights to the content to various platforms, generating profits.
Yin sued five companies, including the application manager, the AI program provider, and a company that recorded his voice, alleging that their conduct and practices violated the proprietary rights of his own voice.
“I have never allowed anyone to do business with my recorded voice, let alone process it using artificial intelligence, or sell the content generated” through these programs, Yin said in court.
The complainant asked the court to order the defendants to “immediately stop” the violation and impose damages of 600,000 yuan (about 77,430 euros).
“I live by my voice. Audiobooks using my voice, processed with artificial intelligence, have influenced my work and my normal life,” he said.
The defendants argued that the AI-processed voice is not the same as Yin’s original voice and that the two should be distinguished.
Quoted by China Daily, Liu Bin, a Beijing-based lawyer, said legal professionals are “exploring better ways to resolve AI-related disputes.”
“The practice of law will help us strike a balance between technological progress and the protection of rights,” he said.
The Asian country in July approved a provisional regulation to regulate generative artificial intelligence services, similar to ChatGPT, which will be subject to “existing regulations in the areas of information security, protection of personal data, intellectual property, and scientific and technological progress.”
These programs will also have to respect “fundamental socialist values”, “social morality and professional ethics” and will be prohibited from “generating content that threatens national security, territorial unity, social stability or the rights and legitimate interests of third parties”.
Several Chinese tech giants, such as Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, have introduced services based on artificial intelligence in recent months, although censorship imposed by authorities has raised questions about the use of this type of technology in China.
Source: DN
