This TikTok lawsuit highlights how AI screwing over voice actors.
Bev Standing, a popular voice actress, is suing TikTok after the platform allegedly acquired and replicated her voice using AI without her knowledge and consent.
According to Standing, the company used her voice for its text-to-speech feature without compensation or consent.
“I was dumbfounded when I first found out,” Standing told the Telegraph in May 2021.
“I thought ‘this is wild, I’m the voice of TikTok’. But that’s not right, I’m not getting paid for it.”
She told the news outlet that she recorded around 10,000 sentences during her work with the Institute of Acoustics.
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TikTok Settles
TikTok has reportedly agreed to settle the lawsuit filed by Bev Standing.
Standing’s lawyer, Robert Sciglimpaglia, said in a statement to The Verge that “an amicable resolution” had been reached and that a settlement is still being finalized.
Sciglimpaglia added that TikTok agreed to license Standing’s voice as part of the deal but noted that the app would ultimately get to choose whether to use it.
TikTok Lawsuit Highlights How AI Is Affecting Voice Actors
A TikTok lawsuit highlights how AI is affecting voice actors. So, what happened?
At the center of this lawsuit is voice actress, Bev Standing, who is suing TikTok after claiming that the company used her voice for its text-to-speech feature without compensation or consent
(Right now, there’s a new AI Technology that easily turns text-to-speech into Human-Like voices in 23 Different Languages. Watch and Listen to this video that explains this amazing Text-To-Speech technology.)
Her lawsuit claims TikTok did not pay or notify her to use her voice for its text-to-speech feature, and that some videos using it voiced “foul and offensive language” causing “irreparable harm” to her reputation.
Brands advertising on TikTok also had the text-to-speech voice available at their disposal, meaning her voice could be used for explicitly commercial purposes.
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Sadly, this is not the first case like this; voice actress Susan Bennett discovered that the audio she recorded for another company was repurposed to be the voice of Siri after Apple launched the feature in 2011. She was paid for the initial recording session; however, she was not compensated for being Siri.
Rallying behind Bev Standing, numerous voice actors donated to a GoFundMe that has raised nearly $7,000 towards her legal expenses and posted TikTok videos under the #StandingWithBev hashtag warning users about the feature.
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Standing’s supporters say the TikTok lawsuit is not just about the use of Standing’s voice – it’s about the future of an entire industry attempting to adapt to new advancements in the field of machine learning. Do you support Bev’s case?
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