Voice actors worry over signing away voice rights to AI

Voice actors express concern about granting voice rights to AI, potentially losing ownership and compensation for their talent, impacting their future work opportunities. The National Association of Voice Actors advises actors on handling such clauses in contracts. Meanwhile, proponents argue that this shift can offer new revenue streams by allowing actors to license their voices for multiple projects simultaneously through AI technology.

As artificial intelligence technology for voice generation becomes more prevalent, voice actors are increasingly being required to relinquish their ownership over their vocal performances in order to allow clients to use AI to produce synthetic replicas that could potentially replace them without offering any further compensation.

This trend has massive repercussions for the future of work. Voice actors are concerned that they may be left without compensation for the talent they have worked so hard to develop. Many voice actors might not realize they have signed a contract giving away their rights. In response, the National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) has published advice for actors who come across such clauses in their contracts. A representative of Elevenlabs, an AI company specializing in natural-sounding speech synthesis, argues that the trend benefits voice actors as voice actors will no longer be limited by the number of recording sessions they can attend. Instead, they will be able to license their voices for use in any number of projects simultaneously, securing additional revenue and royalty streams.