Two voice actors sued artificial-intelligence startup Lovo in Manhattan federal court docket on Thursday, accusing the corporate of illegally copying their voices and utilizing them with out permission in its AI voiceover know-how.
Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage stated within the proposed class-action lawsuit that San Francisco-based Lovo is promoting AI variations of their voices with out permission after tricking them into offering voice samples for the corporate. The actors, in search of damages of no less than $5 million for the category, accused Lovo of fraud, false promoting and violating their publicity rights.
The case is the most recent in a rising wave of high-stakes lawsuits wherein tech firms have been accused of misusing content material together with books, news articles and track lyrics to energy generative AI programs.
“We want to make sure this doesn’t happen to other people,” lawyer Steve Cohen of Pollock Cohen, representing the plaintiffs, advised Reuters. “We don’t know, of the thousands of voices Lovo says they use, how many people know that their voices were used and may still be used.”
Representatives for Lovo didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Lehrman and Sage had been approached on freelancer market Fiverr to supply voiceover work for nameless purchasers, in response to the lawsuit. Lehrman was advised his voice can be used just for a “research project,” whereas Sage was advised her voice can be used solely with “test scripts for radio ads,” the lawsuit said.
Instead, Lehrman later heard AI variations of his voice in YouTube movies about Russian navy tools and in a podcast episode about “the dangers of AI technologies,” in response to the lawsuit. Sage’s voice was used to present voiceovers for Lovo promotional supplies, it added.
Lehrman later discovered that his Fiverr shopper was a Lovo worker, the lawsuit stated.
The actors stated they later discovered that Lovo was promoting using Lehrman’s voice to subscribers as “Kyle Snow” and Sage’s as “Sally Coleman.” According to the criticism, the corporate responded to a cease-and-desist letter by saying the actors’ voices had been “not popular” and that their gross sales had been “negligible.”
The actors filed the lawsuit on behalf of a proposed class of individuals whose voices Lovo is also accused of misusing. The criticism stated Lovo’s web site additionally provides superstar soundalike voices beneath names like “Barack Yo Mama,” “Mark Zuckerpunch” and “Cocoon O’Brien.”
The case is Lehrman v. Lovo Inc, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:24-cv-03770. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
