A New Normal?

As a voice actor with a 25-year history of narrating bilingual eLearning, it's easy to discern a new normal in 2024.

More than a handful of eLearning clients have said the ugly part out loud: "We're having a tough time convincing clients to use a human narrator. They all want to try the shiny new toy: AI voice."

This particularly affects voice actors' bread-and-butter work, which is high-frequency, short-duration explainer and eLearning projects for actors living outside the big commercial production markets.

HOWEVER, when collaborating with true creatives, it's amazing what happens when the conversation becomes a win-win negotiation.

A localization company in the US that helps to convert videos into local versions (in my case, think US/Canadian English or Canadian French) approached me about collaborating in the near term and needed an agreement signed.

I got hung up on a passage in their agreement regarding Intellectual Property and sought clarification. In my request, I mentioned the concept that, as a voice actor, my voice is my intellectual property. Would the client be comfortable signing an agreement explicitly recognizing that, specifically in an AI context?

I proposed the legal language that the North American Voice Actors Collective (NAVA) posted on its website for the voice-acting community to use. You can find NAVA at https://navavoices.org. 

To my delight and surprise, this client created a written agreement with all five points verbatim and accompanied it with a message supporting the rights of creatives like voice actors to their intellectual property. The whole conversation surprised and delighted them as well.

I encourage you to have this conversation with any prospective client. It will help to ensure your voice acting career remains viable.

1.  Client expressly agrees not to utilize any portion of the Talent’s file, recording, or performance for purposes other than those specified in the initial Agreement between the parties, including but not limited to the creation of synthetic or “cloned” voices or for machine learning.

2.  Client shall not utilize any recording or performance of Talent to simulate the client’s voice or likeness, or to create any synthesized or “digital double” voice or likeness of Talent.

3.  Client specifically agrees not to sell or transfer ownership of any of the original files recording the performance of Talent to any third party for purposes of using the files for Artificial Intelligence, such as text to speech, or speech to speech uses, without Talent’s knowledge and consent.

4.  Client agrees not to enter into any agreements or contracts on behalf of Talent which utilize any part of the original files recording the performance of Talent for purposes of using the files for Artificial Intelligence, such as text to speech, or speech to speech uses, without Talent’s knowledge and consent.

5.  Client agrees to use good faith efforts to prevent any files of recordings or performances stored in digital format containing Talent’s voice or likeness from unauthorized access by third parties. If such files are stored in “the cloud,” Client agrees to utilize services that offer safeguards through encryption or other “up-to-date” technological means to prevent unauthorized third-party access.

Thanks for reading. Other thoughts on the voice acting industry are in other blog posts. Naturally, I hope you spend a few seconds listening to the voice (s) inside my head on the demos page!