Japanese court recognizes voice as an object of publicity rights — Anadolu Agency

The Tokyo District Court in Japan has ruled that voices are protected by publicity rights similar to image rights. This is the country’s first such ruling in a case involving AI voice cloning, Anadolu Agency reports, citing Kyodo News.

Lawsuit against TikTok

The ruling was issued in a case filed by voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda. At the same time, the court rejected his request to order TikTok’s operator to remove videos voiced by an AI-generated voice that Tsuda considered similar to his own.

Tsuda is known, in particular, for voicing the character Kento Nanami in the anime Jujutsu Kaisen. The lawsuit was filed after an anonymous user posted 188 videos about urban legends, occultism and interesting facts between July 2024 and September 2025. The account was later deleted in June 2026.

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Positions of the parties

An analysis found a significant similarity between Tsuda’s voice and the AI-generated voice. The actor himself said that this misled viewers.

TikTok’s operator argued that the videos used a standard male voice that could not be mistaken for Tsuda’s voice. The author of the posts, in turn, said that the AI had been trained on a friend’s voice.

Japan currently has no clear laws that directly define voice rights. At the same time, the country’s Ministry of Justice has issued guidelines stating that posting videos on social media with voices similar to those of real people and earning income from them may constitute an infringement of rights.