Greene’s AI voice claims against Google survive challenge

According to Loeb & Loeb’s article “Greene v. Google LLC”, a California state court has allowed radio and podcast host David Greene’s claims against Google over the alleged unauthorized reproduction of his voice in NotebookLM to proceed. The court rejected Google’s preliminary objections to all four claims: statutory and common law rights of publicity, unfair competition and unjust enrichment. The ruling concerns the sufficiency of the allegations, rather than a determination of liability. The full decision has not been directly reviewed.

Greene alleges that Google used recordings of his voice to create the male AI host in its Audio Overviews feature and used that voice to promote the product without consent. Alternatively, he alleges deliberate imitation of his voice regardless of the technology employed. The court found sufficient allegations under California Civil Code Section 3344 concerning a digital reproduction derived from Greene’s voice and its connection to commercial purposes. For the common law claim, it considered the allegations of deliberate imitation of a recognizable voice to sell a product sufficient.

The court also held that the federal Copyright Act did not preempt these state law claims: they concern the alleged appropriation of voice and identity, distinct from rights in sound recordings. The central allegation concerns newly generated speech in that voice, rather than reproduction or distribution of recordings. The court nevertheless acknowledged that a state law claim independently based on copying the recordings could be preempted. It dismissed the claims against Alphabet with leave to amend because the allegations were insufficient to establish its responsibility for the conduct attributed to Google.