The Pulse
Tokyo Court Says Performers’ Voices May Carry Publicity Rights
A Tokyo District Court judgment sets out when unauthorized use of a performer’s voice may infringe publicity rights. The court dismissed voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda’s request to remove 188 TikTok videos because the posts had already been dele
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
The court set out a test for voice-related publicity rights
A Tokyo District Court judgment issued September 30, 2026, described circumstances in which unauthorized use of a performer’s voice may infringe publicity rights. The case concerned 188 TikTok videos narrated with audio that voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda said resembled his voice. The court dismissed Tsuda’s request to have the videos removed, but its judgment addressed whether a person’s voice can be protected under publicity rights.
The court said an infringement may occur when a performer’s voice has customer-attracting appeal that promotes sales and its unauthorized use is aimed exclusively at exploiting that appeal. The judgment frames the question around both the commercial appeal of a voice and the purpose for using it. It does not say that every imitation or AI-generated voice infringes publicity rights, and it does not resolve whether the audio in these videos met the test.
「人の声は、人の肖像と同様に個人の人格の象徴であるということができるところ、例えば実演家の声等を無断で使用する行為は、その声が商品の販売等を促進する顧客吸引力を有するといえる場合であって、その声を使用する行為が専らその声の有する顧客吸引力の利用を目的とするものといえるときは、パブリシティ権の侵害に当たると解するのが相当であるといえる。」
Tokyo District Court, judgment in Tsuda’s case
In English, the court’s statement says that a voice, like a person’s likeness, can symbolize that individual’s personality. It says unauthorized use of a performer’s voice may infringe publicity rights when the voice has customer-attracting appeal that promotes sales and the use is intended exclusively to benefit from that appeal.
The judgment records competing accounts of the audio
The account, operated by an unidentified user, posted the videos from July 2024 to September 2025. The judgment says the account had more than 210,000 followers in November 2025. The videos used narration for material about urban legends, ghosts and other trivia. Some viewers commented that Tsuda’s voice seemed to be audible, but those reactions did not establish whether the narration was his voice or a sufficiently similar imitation.
Tsuda argued that the audio resembled his distinctive voice and that the videos used its appeal to attract viewers. TikTok’s operator disputed that account, arguing that the narration was a generic male voice produced using AI trained on a friend’s voice, rather than Tsuda’s. The judgment records both sides’ positions. It did not determine whether the sound was Tsuda’s voice, whether it sufficiently resembled his voice, or whether the videos’ use of the audio infringed his publicity rights.
That limit is important to the outcome. The lawsuit sought removal of the posts, not a ruling resolving every dispute about the audio. The court record says the account was deleted on May 29, 2026, and the videos’ data was removed from TikTok’s servers on June 28. The court therefore dismissed the removal claims because the requested posts had already been deleted; it did not decide the remaining disputed issues.
The ruling leaves the application to other cases
The judgment provides a general formulation for assessing when commercial use of a voice may infringe publicity rights. It does not establish that the 188 videos infringed Tsuda’s rights, nor does it decide how the test applies to particular forms of imitation or AI-generated audio. Those questions were left unresolved in this case because the posts were no longer available for removal.
For Tsuda, the court’s statement about voices and publicity rights came alongside a dismissal of his specific request. The decision’s legal discussion and its case-specific result are distinct: the court described a possible basis for protection, but did not determine whether the disputed narration crossed that line. The judgment instead ended the removal claim after the account and video data had been deleted.