Japan's actors union sets rules for AI use of performers' voices

The Japan Actors Union, a cooperative of about 2,600 actors and voice actors, announced guidelines for generative AI use of voices at a press conference in Tokyo on 15 October. The union says Japan has no law that directly protects a person's voice, so it wrote voluntary rules for studios, platforms and AI developers.

The core rule is prior permission at every stage: training, generating and publishing or using a voice, with the purpose made clear to the performer. The guidelines also treat AI-generated use of a voice as a performance that should be paid for.

The union says performers' past work is being scraped to train voice clones, and that lookalike voices are turning up in commercial use and fake videos without their knowledge. Voice work is a big part of how games and anime are made in Japan, and Eurogamer flagged the guidelines for that reason.

The same week, Masako Nozawa, the Japanese voice of Son Goku in Dragon Ball, told NHK that using her voice through AI without permission was unforgivable, and that permission should be needed even for partial use of a voice.