Actors Ask Andy Burnham to Give Them Legal Ownership of Their Own Voices

Key points

• Around 80 actors signed an open letter to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham calling for voice-cloning legislation, as reported by The Guardian.
• The campaign, called Save Our Voices Now, targets AI voice cloning, technology that copies a real person's voice and can make it say anything.
• Signatories include Nicola Coughlan, Hugh Bonneville, Matt Lucas, Luke Evans, Jen Brister, Siobhán McSweeney and Pearl Mackie.
• No UK law currently gives performers automatic legal ownership of their own voice.

Your voice is yours. That feels obvious. But right now, UK law does not guarantee it.

A group of roughly 80 actors has signed an open letter to Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, asking him to push for legislation that would make AI voice cloning without a performer's consent illegal. The campaign is called Save Our Voices Now.

What exactly is AI voice cloning?

Voice cloning is when software listens to recordings of a real person speaking and then builds a copy of that voice, a digital replica that can say any new words you type into it. A few minutes of audio is often enough.

The cloned voice can then appear in advertisements, audiobooks, video games or phone calls, all without the original speaker ever knowing. The person whose voice was copied earns nothing and consents to nothing.

For working actors, that is a direct economic threat. A studio that once paid a performer to record a character for a video game sequel can, in theory, pay once, clone the voice, and use it forever.

Who is behind the campaign?

Save Our Voices Now has pulled together a recognisable group. Nicola Coughlan, best known for Bridgerton and Derry Girls, is among the signatories. So are Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Matt Lucas, Luke Evans, comedian Jen Brister, Derry Girls actor Siobhán McSweeney, and Pearl Mackie, who played companion Bill Potts in Doctor Who.

The letter targets Burnham rather than Westminster directly, likely because he has been an outspoken figure on workers' rights and digital regulation, and because the Greater Manchester region has a growing creative economy.

What do they actually want?

The campaign wants two things. First, a law that says your voice is your intellectual property, something you own the same way you own your image or your written words. Second, any commercial use of a cloned voice should require explicit written consent and fair pay.

Neither exists in UK law today.

What does this mean for ordinary listeners?

If you have ever called a customer service line and spoken to what sounded like a warm, familiar voice, there is a real chance it was cloned. You may have bought an audiobook narrated by a voice that the original actor never agreed to lend.

This is not a problem exclusive to famous performers. Session singers, voice-over artists and audio-described narrators, many of whom earn modest, irregular incomes, face the same threat with far less public profile to protect them.

Remember that when you read the celebrity names. The stars bring the headlines. The economic damage lands hardest on people whose names you will never know.

One honest takeaway: If you hire voice talent for any project, ask directly whether the contract restricts AI cloning of the recorded audio. Many standard agreements do not cover it yet, and adding that clause costs nothing.