Digital replicas: personality rights debate reopened by AI-generated voice concerns

Below, we examine the case for new UK IP rights to account for the growing prevalence of digital replicas – a concept that also raises data protection questions that businesses must consider.

Disputes over voice rights

Recently, as reported by the BBC, Guardian and others, more than 80 performers – including actor Hugh Bonneville and comedian Matt Lucas – called on the UK government to give individuals a new legal right to own their own voice as their personal intellectual property amidst concern about the ease with which someone’s voice can be replicated using AI technology. The ‘Save Our Voices Now’ campaign has started a parliamentary petition and said it believes “voice theft” to pose a threat to the creative industry, personal security, and to “the very essence of our identity”.

The concerns of the UK performers are echoed elsewhere: George Clooney spoke on the topic at the Venice International Film Festival, while legal action has also been initiated recently in the US and Germany over voice-related rights.

The US case is being pursued by hundreds of musicians who have reportedly sued AI-powered music generator Suno alleging that the company enables users to recreate versions of their music without their permission. Suno has said it will defend the claims, according to a report by music publication Pitchfork.

In Germany, the country's professional association for voice actors, Verband Deutscher Sprecher:innen (VDS), has lodged a competition complaint with the Federal Cartel Office over the terms of Netflix licensing agreements that would reportedly enable the company to use the actors’ voices for AI training and the creation of synthetic voices. The VDS said its members are being pressured to assign rights in their voice to Netflix and that it is worried the voice actors could be put out of work “if Netflix uses the voices of voice actors to train AI systems and create dubbing productions automatically in the future”. MLex reported that Netflix believes the complaint lacks merit.

A new digital replicas law?

While the recent news has been focused on voice-related rights, the government has been considering updates to UK law for another feature of a person’s likeness too – their appearance. Those enhanced protections are being contemplated in the context of the growing prevalence of ‘digital replicas’ – a concept the government has defined as “images, videos and audio recordings created by digital technology to realistically replicate an individual’s voice or appearance”.

According to the government, digital replicas can cause a range of harms – for people whose likeness is mimicked, and for those who consume the content. Examples it has cited include: unauthorised commercial imitation, leading to lost commercial opportunities for those imitated; reputational harm derived from false depictions; fraud, radicalisation or the spread of misinformation stemming from digital replicas being used to deceive or manipulate people; technology facilitated sexual abuse; and production of criminal material

In March 2026, the government pledged to consult on options to address those risks, which it acknowledged cannot fully be addressed under existing legal protections spread across a variety of frameworks – whether under the UK’s IP, data protection and privacy, defamation, or online safety regimes.

At the time, the then UK technology secretary Liz Kendall said the consultation would take place during the summer. There has been a subsequent change of UK prime minister and Cabinet restructure, with Kendall losing her job in government and her role being scrapped under a departmental reorganisation. A spokesperson for the government was unable to confirm when the consultation will now take place in response to a query raised by Out-Law.

Limitations with the current IP regime

Unlike other jurisdictions such as Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, in the UK there is no codified image or personality right that enables individuals to assert control over others’ use of their likeness. However, one of the options the government said it would explore in its digital replicas consultation is the need for a specific new personality right to be provided for in UK law.

Currently, the UK’s IP framework does provide for rights that can be relevant to a person’s voice or appearance, though there are limitations in the scope of those rights.

Passing off

The law of passing off is a common law concept that gives people who have built up a reputation or goodwill in their name or image some scope to prevent others from piggybacking off their brand. This has traditionally been the IP right that celebrities have had to rely on to prevent unlicensed use of their image or likeness in the UK, although its nature as an unregistered right can create difficulties in doing so. Someone asserting passing off must not only provide evidence of reputation or goodwill but also demonstrate that there has been a misrepresentation by others likely to mislead consumers as to the origin of the goods or services, and that this misrepresentation caused them damage.

While major celebrities and brands have been able to rely on the law of passing off in the UK before – Rihanna, for instance, used the law of passing off to prevent fashion retailer Topshop from selling t-shirts with a photo of her on it without her consent – the fact that right requires evidence of goodwill and reputation is a barrier to it being relied upon by, for example, new or less-well-known artists. In addition, the fact the concept of misrepresentation must have a commercial connection and that there is increasing labelling of AI-generated content – not least because such labelling is required under the EU’s AI Act – present further difficulties in satisfying the legal tests for passing off in respect of copycat AI output generated without consent.

Copyright

The recent ruling by the High Court of England and Wales in the ‘Peppa Pig’ case showed how it is possible to enforce copyright in the context of unauthorised reproductions of audio recordings in which copyright vests. In that case, a Vietnam-based company was found liable for copyright infringement after the court heard evidence of a match between the sound recordings it used for its TV show ‘Wolfoo’ and those derived from Peppa Pig videos.

However, copyright attaches to the audio recording work itself and not to the underlying recorded sound. While voice actors can assert performers’ rights under the UK’s copyright regime, those were not at issue in the Peppa Pig case and are, in any event, tied to a recording of an existing performance and could not be asserted in respect of new AI-generated output, even if that output closely replicates the original performance.

We also know from the Getty Images v Stability AI case that if the copying happens outside of the UK, claims of primary copyright infringement could not be brought in the UK under UK copyright law and there are further hurdles to overcome in succeeding with any secondary infringement claims concerning imports of any infringing copies.

Trade marks

It is possible, under UK trade mark law, to register sounds as trade marks, but those sounds are generally things like jingles or short pieces of music that serve as a badge of commercial origin. Someone with a recognisable voice could theoretically trade mark a particular slogan read in their own voice where they are known for saying the relevant words in the context of a commercial enterprise, but they could not trade mark the features of the voice itself – its tone, the register, the cadence – in such a way that it would give them monopoly rights over any use of that voice, including rights to prohibit synthetic replicas being generated via an AI tool.

The case for a new personality right

The limitations with the existing IP regime and growing use of realistic impersonation through AI strengthen the case for a new personality right to be introduced in the UK. However, there is a need to achieve a balance of interests – something the government has itself acknowledged when it said any new measures would need to address the risks associated with digital replicas while also promoting growth and innovation.

While the question is currently centred around digital replicas in the context of gen-AI output, a new overarching personality right would have to be drafted in such a way to be technologically neutral, so that it applies in the context of AI training too and remains relevant over time as technology evolves.

There are concepts from existing UK IP law that could be borrowed from and applied as a way of qualifying a person’s monopoly rights to control use of their voice or appearance under a new personality right. Exceptions to copyright, such as those relevant to news reporting, educational use, parody and pastiche, could have utility in this regard.