Who owns your voice? Linguistic and legal perspectives on the relationship between vocal distinctiveness and the rights of the individual speaker

Dominic Watt; Peter Stuart Harrison; Lily Cabot-King

Who owns your voice? Linguistic and legal perspectives on the relationship between vocal distinctiveness and the rights of the individual speaker

Dominic Watt, Peter Stuart Harrison, Lily Cabot-King

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Only in very recent times has the concept of ‘ownership’ of a human voice begun
to demand proper consideration in terms of its legal implications. The current lack
of clarity with respect to the rights afforded to individuals and organisations in
this area is something that must be addressed as a matter of some urgency, given
that voice samples are now collected on an unprecedented scale, with or without
the knowledge or consent of the person(s) who produced the captured speech. In
this article we explore the issue of voice ownership from a variety of perspectives,
starting with an attempt to define what the voice actually is, and then considering
how representations of a talker’s voice at greater or lesser levels of concreteness (or
‘tangibility’) can be misappropriated and misused in unethical or unlawful ways.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	137-180
Number of pages	43
Journal	International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law
Volume	26
Issue number	2
Publication status	Published - 2 Mar 2020

Bibliographical note

© 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

Keywords

Linguistics
speech and language processing
property
Ownership
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Access to Document

WOYVFINAL
© 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.
Accepted author manuscript, 553 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "Who owns your voice? Linguistic and legal perspectives on the relationship between vocal distinctiveness and the rights of the individual speaker",

abstract = "Only in very recent times has the concept of {\textquoteleft}ownership{\textquoteright} of a human voice begunto demand proper consideration in terms of its legal implications. The current lackof clarity with respect to the rights afforded to individuals and organisations inthis area is something that must be addressed as a matter of some urgency, giventhat voice samples are now collected on an unprecedented scale, with or withoutthe knowledge or consent of the person(s) who produced the captured speech. Inthis article we explore the issue of voice ownership from a variety of perspectives,starting with an attempt to define what the voice actually is, and then consideringhow representations of a talker{\textquoteright}s voice at greater or lesser levels of concreteness (or{\textquoteleft}tangibility{\textquoteright}) can be misappropriated and misused in unethical or unlawful ways.",

keywords = "Linguistics, speech and language processing, property, Ownership, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY",

author = "Dominic Watt and Harrison, {Peter Stuart} and Lily Cabot-King",

note = "{\textcopyright} 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher{\textquoteright}s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.",

year = "2020",

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language = "English",

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Who owns your voice? Linguistic and legal perspectives on the relationship between vocal distinctiveness and the rights of the individual speaker. / Watt, Dominic ; Harrison, Peter Stuart; Cabot-King, Lily.
In: International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, Vol. 26, No. 2, 02.03.2020, p. 137-180.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

TY - JOUR

T1 - Who owns your voice? Linguistic and legal perspectives on the relationship between vocal distinctiveness and the rights of the individual speaker

AU - Watt, Dominic

AU - Harrison, Peter Stuart

AU - Cabot-King, Lily

N1 - © 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2020/3/2

Y1 - 2020/3/2

N2 - Only in very recent times has the concept of ‘ownership’ of a human voice begunto demand proper consideration in terms of its legal implications. The current lackof clarity with respect to the rights afforded to individuals and organisations inthis area is something that must be addressed as a matter of some urgency, giventhat voice samples are now collected on an unprecedented scale, with or withoutthe knowledge or consent of the person(s) who produced the captured speech. Inthis article we explore the issue of voice ownership from a variety of perspectives,starting with an attempt to define what the voice actually is, and then consideringhow representations of a talker’s voice at greater or lesser levels of concreteness (or‘tangibility’) can be misappropriated and misused in unethical or unlawful ways.

AB - Only in very recent times has the concept of ‘ownership’ of a human voice begunto demand proper consideration in terms of its legal implications. The current lackof clarity with respect to the rights afforded to individuals and organisations inthis area is something that must be addressed as a matter of some urgency, giventhat voice samples are now collected on an unprecedented scale, with or withoutthe knowledge or consent of the person(s) who produced the captured speech. Inthis article we explore the issue of voice ownership from a variety of perspectives,starting with an attempt to define what the voice actually is, and then consideringhow representations of a talker’s voice at greater or lesser levels of concreteness (or‘tangibility’) can be misappropriated and misused in unethical or unlawful ways.

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KW - INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

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JO - International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law

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