TikTok owner Bytedance settled out of court with voice actor Bev Standing for allegedly using her voice without her permission for its new text-to-speech function.

Hired to read thousands of English sentences for translation by China's Institute of Acoustics, Standing sued Bytedance on the basis that her recordings came into TikTok's possession and her voice used to generate TikTok's new text-to-speech function.

With her voice appearing in 'foul and offensive' viral videos across the world, Standing also accuses TikTok of causing her reputation 'irreparable harm'. 

TikTok has yet to acknowledge in public that it had been using her voice.

Legal, regulatory ⚖️

• Standing v Bytedance

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xqwj/this-tiktok-lawsuit-is-highlighting-how-ai-is-screwing-over-voice-actors

• https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/09/1028140/ai-voice-actors-sound-human

• https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/05/25/who-is-beverly-standing/

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57063087

• https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/13/22435058/tiktok-voice-sues-unauthorized-usage-text-to-speech

• https://www.inputmag.com/culture/tiktok-is-being-sued-by-the-voice-of-its-viral-text-to-speech-feature

• https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canadian-actor-suing-tiktok-1.6024369

• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2021/05/09/voice-tiktok-sues-company-emotional-distress/

• https://screenrant.com/tiktok-text-speech-app-feature-voice-actor-lawsuit-explained/

• https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22701167/bev-standing-tiktok-lawsuit-settles-text-to-speech-voice