Greg Marston, a British voice actor with over 20 years of experience, recently stumbled upon his voice being used in an online demo.
Marston’s voice is one of several on Revoicer, a website that provides an AI tool that converts text into voices in 40 languages with varying intonations, moods, and styles.
I contacted the company because I didn’t remember agreeing to use AI to replicate my voice. Revoicer said he purchased his voice from IBM.
In 2005, Marston signed a contract with IBM for recording work for a car navigation system. Marston had signed into his 18-year-old contract, an industry standard, to permanently disenfranchise speech rights at a time before generative AI existed. IBM now has a license to replicate his voice using his AI and sell it to third parties who can sell it for any commercial purpose. IBM said it was “aware of the concerns raised by Mr. Marston” and was “having direct discussions with Mr. Marston.”
“[Marston] Matilde Pavis, an artist attorney who specializes in digital cloning techniques, said: “He had signed the document, but there was no agreement that 20 years later it would be cloned by an unexpected technology.”
As companies race to commercialize generative AI—artificial intelligence systems that can rapidly output human-like text, images, and content—thousands of other voice-over and performance artists face the same dilemma as Marston. increase.
Over the past year, text-to-speech technology has become more accurate, more widely available, and easier to create, leading to new business models centered around AI cloning. Artists who rely on their voices and faces to create their work have their livelihoods threatened by potentially exploitative contracts, data collection techniques and fraud allegations, resulting in a rapid loss of their work and rights. has been eroded.
Pavis said he has received at least 45 AI-related inquiries since January, including cases of actors being overheard in phone scams such as fake insurance calls and AI-generated ads. It is said that there is Equity, the UK performing arts and entertainment trade union, which is working with Pavis, said it had also received several complaints about AI fraud and exploitation in the past six months.
“With or without consent, more and more members are using their voices, images and likenesses to create entirely new performances using AI technology,” said Liam Budd, new media industry director at Equity. says Mr. “If you are part of a dataset of thousands or millions of people whose voices or likenesses have been collected by AI developers, you have no protection.”
Lawrence Bouvard, a London-based voice actor for audiobooks, advertisements and radio dramas, has also encountered several instances of exploitative behavior. She recently received an alert on her Facebook about a fake casting. In fake casting, an AI website asks an actor to read recipes or gibberish lines, when in reality she is just a vehicle for collecting voice data for an AI model.
Some companies advertise regular voice work but include AI synthesis clauses in their contracts, while others offer pittances, albeit up front, in exchange for permanent rights to the actors’ voices. There is also For example, a recent job ad posted on the creative job market Mandy.com described a half-day live where tech company D-ID videotaped his five-minute script for creating his AI presenter. It was done.
“This technology is already being used to power training videos for companies such as Microsoft,” the job ad states. “Since the dialogue is censored, you cannot use this technology to make explicit or offensive remarks,” he added.
The company offered a flat fee of £600 to individuals in exchange for the actor’s image and likeness. D-ID said it paid a “fair market price.” It added that certain ads had been taken down and “does not reflect the final payment.”
“Keep in mind that there is no AI without training data,” Bouvard said at a recent trade union conference event in Westminster. “And yet, without asking permission and without proper compensation … AI companies have taken our voices, performances and likenesses and trained algorithms based on our data to come up with products to replace us. We are producing.”
She added, “There is nothing we performers can do under the current law. This is not only to protect jobs, but to protect what it means to be an artist.”
Marcus Hutton, a 30-year voice actor, has compiled a list of acting synthesis or AI companies and found more than 60. Many of them have large amounts of venture capital funding. London-based Eleven Labs, for example, raised $19 million earlier this month in a round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participants including Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe. etc. participated.
“We have to see the massive transfer of money from the creative department to the tech department as it is. It is very clear: money is moving from our pot to theirs,” Hutton said. said. “Every time a performer stands in front of a microphone or camera, they risk disenfranchising their AI.”
ElevenLabs said it is working with voice actors and their representatives to understand how platforms like the company can create more commercial opportunities in the space. The company said: “We believe that, together with AI companies and the creative community, these technologies will ensure that new artificial intelligence can be created … content creators create better, more globally accessible content.” We will make it profitable while we can.”
Some 94% of workers in the creative industries earn less than the UK median full-time salary of £33,280 a year, according to research conducted by Equity. That salary level makes them vulnerable in any negotiations. Lawyer Pavis said the introduction of AI has further weakened the position of artists in an industry that already offers unfair contracts to artists.
Revoicer, an AI voice company, said Marston’s voice came from IBM’s cloud-based text-to-speech service. The startup, “like thousands of other developers,” bought a million characters worth of audio, or about 16 hours worth of audio, from IBM for $20.
Legally, artists have little recourse. The Data Privacy Act is the only law covering AI, and the UK government says it wants a light-touch intellectual property regulation that will allow AI innovation to thrive.
” [UK] Copyright law has not undergone major changes for at least 25 years. That was before the internet,” voice actor Hutton said. “The only right a performer has at this point is consent. will be in the position of
Equity, which counts Hutton and Bouvard as members, is pushing for new rights to be enshrined in law in contracts that are clearly termed, rather than the industry standard of permanently signing rights. It also calls for legislation to require explicit consent when an artist’s voice or body is cloned by AI. Two weeks ago, the union announced a “toolkit” that provides model clauses and contracts for the use of AI for artists and their agents to refer to.
“I’m a working actor . . . I’m probably one of the last generation of day-to-day actors who were able to buy a house or raise a child without becoming so famous,” Hutton said. Told. “It’s depressing, but I really don’t know how it can last any longer.”
