IS CHINESE LAW WELL-PREPARED FOR AI SONGS? A NOTE OF CAUTION ON THE OVER-EXPANSION OF PERSONALITY RIGHTS

Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) singers, or more precisely, AI songs cloning celebrities’real voices (AI songs), have become a key topic in the entertainment industry and among fan groups across the globe, particularly in China. AI songs have attracted considerable attention from the legal community, as they unsurprisingly raise various ethical and legal issues. Examples of hotly discussed legal issues surrounding AI songs include whether using prior published songs to train AI models violates copyright holders’rights and whether the creators of AI songs breach copyright protection by training AI to sing songs copyrighted by other celebrities or companies. One of the most pressing issues, which this article aims to explore, is whether AI songs affect any of the exclusive rights granted to celebrities. More specifically, the controversy centerson whether the personality rights of celebrities under Chinese law govern any conduct concerning AI songs mimicking their real voices. Accord-ingly, the first purpose of this article is to descriptively explore whether Chinese law currently supports such aright to voice for celebrities to control the conduct related to AI songs. However, this article does not stop at thislevel of legal interpretation. It primarily aims to discuss a more theoretical and deeper question: even if it is feasible to interpret the current law broadly to allow such a cause of action to regulate AI songs in China, should such an extensive interpretative approach be adopted? This article takes interestin AI songs shared by different groups, such as celebrities, their management companies, and consumers (fans and other audiences),into consideration and attempts to answer the “should”question from the perspectives of different theoretical rationales, includ-ing utilitarianism, labor theory, and dignitary interests. Finally, this ar-ticleconcludes by distilling some common considerations when deciding whether or not to expand the scope of personality rights, and serves as a short note of caution against the over-expansion of personality rights.