The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is starting to consider AI voice cloning a potential threat of copyright infringement. In this regard, the body is pushing the US government to include these platforms in its piracy watch list.
In a presentation at United States Trade Representative (USTR), the RIAA has asked the government to include this category of sites in its annual list, as it believes it would encourage counterfeiting.
Analysis of markets known for counterfeiting and piracy often includes companies, apps, and websites to alert users to potential copyright violations. For example, these documents include famous brands such as AliExpress, WeChat e The Pirate Baywhich have been on the list for years now.
RIAA moves against AI voice cloning sites
The RIAA, more specifically, has called into question only one company in this sector, namely Voicify.AI. which provides vocal models of famous music artists such as Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift e Kanye West.
The organization believes that the website allows users to copy videos of YouTube and superimpose a vocal track over them. For the institution “This unauthorized activity violates the sound recording artist’s copyright and right of publicity“.
In the note, the RIAA then added how “The year 2023 has seen an explosion of unauthorized AI voice cloning services that violate not only the rights of the artists whose voices are cloned, but also the rights of those who own the audio recordings in each underlying music track“.
For the association, founded in 1952 and based in Washington “AI voice cloning has led to “an explosion of unauthorized derivative works“.
While the RIAA is concerned that websites like Voicify could potentially encourage unauthorized use of someone else’s voice, it is not yet clear how the law will deal with the topic. There property protection relating to someone’s appearance, such as face, name or voice, varies from state to state in the states.
