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: software 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 UK law doesn't guarantee it.

Roughly 80 actors have signed an open letter to Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, asking him to push for legislation making 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 software listens to recordings of a real person and builds a digital replica that can speak any new words you type into it. A few minutes of audio is often enough.

That replica can then appear in advertisements, audiobooks or phone calls without the original speaker ever knowing. They earn nothing and consent to nothing.

For working actors, it's 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 and use that voice 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.

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

What do they actually want?

Two things. First, a law recognising your voice as intellectual property 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. Our 28 August report on performers' rights in the AI era showed how tech companies have so far filled that vacuum on their own terms.

What does this mean for ordinary listeners?

If you've ever called a customer service line and heard a warm, familiar voice, there's a real chance it was cloned. You may have bought an audiobook narrated by a voice the original actor never agreed to lend.

This isn't a problem exclusive to famous performers. Session singers and voice-over artists, many earning modest, irregular incomes, face the same threat with far less public profile to protect them. The stars bring the headlines; the economic damage lands hardest on people whose names you'll 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. Most standard agreements don't cover it yet, and adding that clause costs nothing.