AI Dubbing Controversy: Mexico Leads the Way

Contents

Mexico has Latin America's largest and most important dubbing industry. The country produces well over two-thirds of all dubbing in the hemisphere. However, there are currently no regulations to prevent artificial intelligence (AI) from copying actors' voices without payment or permission. That is set to change.

In mid-February, President Claudia Sheinbaum's government submitted a legislative initiative that legally recognizes the human voice as an artistic tool that cannot be cloned. If the initiative is successful – which is to be expected given the majority in the Mexican Congress – Mexico would be a global pioneer in regulating voice cloning in culture.

Voice actors' work threatened by AI

As the Mexican tech portal Xataka reports, the trigger for the legislative initiative was not Mexican telenovelas, but Korean series. In May 2024, users on social networks shared clips from Korean series on Amazon Prime Video, criticizing that the Spanish dubbing sounded mechanical and robotic. The names of the voice actors were also not listed anywhere. Amazon then withdrew the dubbed versions without comment, but never confirmed the origin of the voices.

Mexico's dubbing actors' union already lamented at the time that dubbing actors across the continent were losing their jobs to AI tools. These, in turn, had partly been trained with their voices.

"AI does not replace"

In early March last year, Prime Video announced a pilot program for AI-assisted dubbing in English and Latin American Spanish. According to Amazon, it involved twelve series that would not have been dubbed without AI. But that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

According to the Mexican Association of Commercial Voice Actors AMELOC (Asociación Mexicana de Locutores Comerciales), a non-profit organization uniting Mexican commercial and dubbing voice actors, Mexico has 35 active studios with around 1,500 actors. The Council of Mexican Companies in the Dubbing Industry CEMID (Consejo de Empresas Mexicanas de la Industria del Doblaje) estimates that this sector offers an average of 1,000 direct and up to 6,000 indirect jobs in Mexico. Mexico produces about 65 percent of Latin American dubbing for Latin America. Hollywood and US streaming services like Netflix or HBO Max have outsourced some of their productions to their southern neighbor. Under the motto "AI does not replace," film industry workers protested in Mexico in July last year. They demanded that the voice be recognized as a biometric characteristic, similar to a fingerprint, to prevent its use without consent.

Reform strengthens voice actors

The government took up the demand and, together with the National Copyright Institute INDAUTOR (Instituto Nacional del Derecho de Autor), developed a draft that provides for the reform of two existing laws. The Federal Labor Law includes dubbing actors as formal employees in the cultural sector, thus equating them with singers. Dubbing actors will thus enjoy legal protection as employees in the cultural sector in the future. The Federal Copyright Law, in turn, recognizes the human voice as a "unique and unrepeatable" artistic tool. The reform stipulates that no voice may be cloned or used digitally without the consent of the rights holder, and that any use of the voice by AI requires financial compensation. Thus, AI dubbing will not be banned, but the voices used to train or replicate the model will be protected.

Mexico will thus become a global pioneer. The fact that human actors in the dubbing sector are increasingly being replaced by AI is also the subject of disputes and regulatory attempts elsewhere. In Germany, for example, German voice actors have been in dispute with the US streaming service Netflix since the beginning of January. The trigger is a contract clause that grants Netflix the right to use dubbing recordings for AI training purposes. The voice actors' association initiated the petition "Protect Art from AI" in April last year.

(akn)