500,000 yen a month sits with the posting account
The complaint in the Tokyo District Court says a TikTok account narrated in a voice Kenjiro Tsuda identifies as his passed 200,000 subscribers and brought in upwards of 500,000 yen a month. AFP converted that sum to 3,200 dollars. Tsuda is 55 and is known for voicing roles in Jujutsu Kaisen and Yu-Gi-Oh!. He is asking for the videos to be removed. The account is no longer viewable on the platform.[1]
A deletion order does not turn the complaint's 500,000 yen, booked to the posting account, into pay for Tsuda. If the court holds TikTok responsible for removal, that duty lands on the platform's takedown work. The revenue from past months is not yet a line on the payroll of the actor who trained the voice for years.[1]
Japan Actors Union asks for ownership of the voice
Yuko Sasaki, executive director of the Japan Actors Union, told AFP that a voice comes from years of training and apprenticeship, that performers spend time and money on it, and that the union supports Tsuda. She asked the court to acknowledge ownership of a voice as a fundamental right. Bin Shimada, an actor in the No More campaign, said the industry could be crushed if a result for TikTok leaves unlicensed cloning unchecked.[1]
TikTok told the court the narration is a generic male voice, that similarity is subjective, and that Tsuda's national fame is in dispute. The platform rejected the unfair-competition claim and said it hosted a forum where users post within free speech. The justice ministry's guidelines from last month tie voice to publicity rights and are not legally binding.[1]
Tatsuhiro Ueno of Waseda University said a denial of publicity rights for the voice may be unlikely. He added that the Jujutsu Kaisen role made the voice highly recognisable in Europe and that the ruling could draw international interest. Wednesday's decision has not yet assigned deletion to TikTok, and it has not yet distributed the account's past revenue.[1]