A few days ago, a video posted on twitter reproduced the voice of the famous rapper Jay-Z with the help of an artificial intelligence, suggesting that the rapper had just released a new song, almost 5 years after his last album. 

Fans' hopes were short-lived. The track, whose lyrics and arrangement were created by a French DJ duo, had a vocal imitation filter applied.

Back in February, DJ David Guetta decided to imitate Eminem's voice for a verse. 

This raises the question of the appropriation of vocal identity by artificial intelligence technologies.

Under French law, the “droit à la voix”, as an attribute of the personality, is protected on the basis of Article 9 of the French Civil Code. As early as 1975, the Paris first instance Court sanctioned the use of an actor's verbal characteristics in an advertising spot.

More recently, the CNIL recalled in its white paper on voice assistants that the voice is a "personal data which, depending on the use made of it, has a variable geometry".

The voice, even if it is widely known to the general public, is therefore protected. Consequently, the use of voice data by artificial intelligence systems without the prior authorisation of the person whose voice is reproduced is objectionable