It will be possible to use a human voice generated using artificial intelligence technologies only with the consent of the owner of this voice or his close relatives. Such a bill was submitted to the State Duma by a number of senators and deputies. Scammers have already learned how to talk with other people's voices, and enterprising producers profit from the voices of famous people, experts said. The Parliamentary Newspaper found out what will change with the adoption of the law.
It was proposed to write down in the Civil Code that the publication and further use of a recording containing a person's voice recreated using special technologies is allowed only with his consent or with the consent of close relatives — parents, children, spouse. Consent will not be required if the recording wants to be used in the state or public interests.
Members of the Announcers' Union complained to the Federation Council about the repeated theft of their votes. Technology leaves them out of work: it's easier and cheaper to generate a voice than paying a person to record it in a studio. There is also an ethical point: pornographic videos were voiced in the voice of one of the announcers, and she could not influence it in any way.
The adoption of the bill will put an end to the uncontrolled use of voice as one of the main biometric parameters of a person's personality, Artem Sheikin, co-author of the initiative, member of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, is confident: "If a recording of a voice was made public in violation of the law, the court may order it to be withdrawn from circulation and destroyed. If the voice spreads on the Internet, the person will be able to request the deletion of the recording and prohibit its further use."
The generated voice is essentially the same deepfake, only without the image of a person, Nikita Danilov, director of the National Federation of the Music Industry, told the Parliamentary Newspaper. Artificial intelligence today is able to recreate the full image that scammers use, so legislative regulation will protect both ordinary people and the copyright and related rights of performers, poets and composers, the expert noted.
Deepfake, according to Danilov, is the deliberate reproduction of the characteristic and unique features of a person's image or voice, which causes a stable associative connection with it. "Now this area is not regulated in any way, which deprives artists of the right to manage their unique image," the expert explained. "Despite the fact that the amendments to the Civil Code are designed to protect the intangible benefit of a voice, this indirectly also applies to property rights if the performer's voice is the source of his earnings."
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