Tokyo District Court rules voice can be protected as commercial reputation right in first for Japan
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The Tokyo District Court ruled on September 30 that a person's voice can receive protection as a commercial reputation right in the same way as a person's likeness, marking the first time a Japanese court has issued a decision on the matter. The case arose after Kenjiro Tsuda, a Japanese voice actor, filed a lawsuit seeking to have TikTok remove videos that used artificial intelligence to create narration that Tsuda claimed resembled his own voice, but the court dismissed the claim because the videos had already been deleted after the suit was filed. Kyodo News reported that Japan currently has no law that clearly defines voice rights, but the Japanese Ministry of Justice recently issued guidelines stating that using a voice similar to a real person's voice in social media videos to generate revenue could constitute an infringement. According to the complaint, an unidentified poster uploaded 188 videos between July 2024 and September 2025 using narration resembling Tsuda's voice, and is accused of earning 500,000 to 750,000 yen a month, or about 3,200 to 4,800 dollars, from using Tsuda's vocal characteristics to boost commercial value. TikTok argued that the narration was an ordinary male voice, and the poster said the AI had been trained on a friend's voice. Tsuda is known for voicing the character Kento Nanami in the anime Jujutsu Kaisen.