ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that ITOCHU, the Japan Actors Union（JAU a.k.a. Nippairen）, and ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (“CTC”) are jointly launching a new official voice database, tentatively named J-VOX-PRO, to safely store, utilize, and provide the voices of performers, such as voice actors and other actors, both in Japan and globally. This initiative comprehensively supports prevention of the unauthorized use of voices, and facilitation of the AI voice business and its global expansion. The three parties have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly promote this initiative. Additionally, the group will collaborate with government authorities to establish systems and rules for countering the unauthorized use of voice, working toward the sound development of the voice business.

With the rapid advancement of generative AI technologies in recent years, we have seen an increase of incidents where unauthorized content containing voices that mimic performers’ voices has been created and distributed, and their personal and economic rights have not been adequately protected. Such unauthorized use causes not only financial loss but also damages trust in performers, affects continuity and quality of their creative work, and hinders the healthy growth of the entire industry. Since 2023, the Japan Actors Union has been addressing these issues. In 2024, it began participating in the NOMORE Unauthorized Generative AI^*1 initiative as a leading organization, working to protect performers’ voices as intellectual property and establish mechanisms that ensure fair compensation and proper usage and management.

The Japan Actors Union will be mainly responsible for storing and utilizing voices, and the official J-VOX-PRO voice database (tentative name) will be established with support of CTC in its operational environment, technologies to be adopted, and management structure.

J-VOX-PRO is a new type of database platform for securely storing and managing performers’ voices. By creating a database of the performers’ voices, which are cultural assets of Japan, recorded in high-quality audio, it provides a safe environment for the long-term use of their voices. The platform is designed for corporate use. Companies and organizations wishing to use the database must pay set fees and obtain and use the voice data within the agreed-upon purposes. Fees and conditions of use are transparently determined after consultation with the performer or their agency.

Furthermore, performers’ consents will be digitized to match these consents with user companies’ requests. Security technologies such as digital watermarking and voiceprint recognition will be used to prevent the unauthorized data use.

It is expected that the voices of performers will be utilized in a wide range of service fields, including education, healthcare, and tourism. Example applications include the delivery of information from governments, the explanation of medical matters to seniors, and multilingual voice guides, to enhance service quality through audio distribution tailored to user needs and to multiple user native languages.

It is projected that the voice business and voice recognition market will grow to be worth 13 trillion yen by 2032.^*2 While we will initially focus on the use of voice data in Japan, we aim for global expansion of the database in the future. To this end, the Japan Actors Union will engage in protecting performers’ rights and increasing revenue-generating opportunities, ITOCHU Corporation in creating new businesses and pursuing overseas expansion through the legitimate use of voice data in collaboration with rights holders, and CTC in continuously developing services utilizing the J-VOX-PRO (tentative name) platform.