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The Ministry of Justice in Japan has come up with a draft to introduce protections for the images and voices of Japanese celebrities and voice actors in response to the proliferation of videos that used unauthorized content generated by AI. The government should release the full guidelines in August 2026. [Thanks, News JP!]
The Ministry of Justice held hearings with voice actors while debating the need to introduce protections. Currently, Japan does not have laws protecting voices from copyright infringement, nor have there been any criteria to determine what would count as infringing a right’s voice. The draft report states that a voice “represents one’s personality, and is under the protection of the right of publicity and the right to keep one’s likeness from being exploited.
Though companies such as Wit Studio and Cygames have been adopting genAI into their workflow, not everyone is fully onboard. In May 2026, voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda (Kaiba in the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, Nanami in Jujustu Kaisen…) sued TikTok to have them take down a video that used a generated voice to copy his likeness. He claimed that, as a voice actor, the video infringes on the rights of his voice. At the time, though, there were no discussions at the government-level regarding voice rights.
As this is still a draft report, we will need to wait until August 2026 for the official government announcement regarding protections in Japan against AI generated videos using the likeness (voice or appearance) of a celebrity or voice actor.
