AI voice startup Lovo is being sued by two voice actors who claim the company hired them to create voice clips to train their AI.
Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage say they were hired by Lovo in 2019 and 2020 to provide several voice clips for what was described as “internal research.” Lehrman said CBS News that the company had assured him on three separate occasions that the voice clips provided would be used “only for internal purposes and never for distribution to third parties”.
Lehrman describes browsing YouTube in 2022 and hearing himself speaking on video. He also describes hearing himself speaking on a podcast he never recorded with his voice. “My voice is out there saying things I never said, in places I didn’t want to be,” Lehrman says. “We are now in science fiction come true.”
Both Lehrman and Sage say Lovo used their voice clips to train its AI – essentially cloning their voices. They claim this is a violation of the respective contracts they signed and have filed for a class action lawsuit in federal court for trademark infringement.
Lovo promotes its services as an AI voice cloning tool that allows users to upload several minutes of audio samples to create a custom voice clone. The service aims to provide podcasters with the ability to model their voice and create new videos by simply entering text and modifying the AI voice model as needed.
There are no federal laws regulating the use of AI to mimic a voice – a hot topic in recent AI discourse. The ELVIS law recently passed in Tennessee covers this issue, but for now it only applies to that state. If a federal law is passed, the ELVIS law could serve as a template for what AI voice protection could look like at the federal level.
OpenAI was recently accused of hiring a sound-a-like singer to imitate Scarlett Johansson’s voice – after contacting the actress to gauge her interest. The move has drawn comparisons to the Midler v. Ford case, in which Ford hired a sound-a-like singer to imitate Bette Midler’s voice for one of its commercials.
“I have an incredibly pessimistic view of the future of voiceover,” said Sage CBS News“So far this year, I’ve lost 75% of the work I would have normally done. And I expect that to get worse.”
“This is about protecting people whose voices can be exploited,” Lehrman adds. “And unfortunately, that applies to everyone.”
