TikTok was forced to change their text-to-speech feature because Beverley Standing sued them. Why did this happen though?
Let us get to know who Beverly Standing is and all the details about this lawsuit.
Who is Beverley Standing?
Beverley is a very successful voice over actress whose voice you can hear in the tweet above. Voice acting/voice overs is about providing a voice for use in a professional piece of audio work. This can range from voice over for gaming, videos, cartoons, commercials and much much more.
You can check out the extensive career of Beverley on her website – bevstanding.com. She shares that she has voiced for Kraft, Revlon, Clarins, Kingsmill Resort, The Tampa Bay Times, Hellman’s, The National Diamond Store, Olay, Kellogg, Water Babies and Jamesons and many more.
You may have heard her on TV and/or radio ads, i-pad applications, YouTube videos, e-Learning, training, medical narration, on-hold messaging, Corporate presentations, awards intros, etc. She has also worked in CBC studios as a production assistant in Radio Drama.
When it comes to her personal life, Beverley is a daughter of an Advertising Executive and resides in Canada.
Why did Beverley sue TikTok?
Beverley filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court against ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, claiming damages for “the emotional distress of having her likeness exploited without consent; loss of the ability to control the dissemination of her likeness; and loss of the ability to control the association of her likeness.”
She revealed to the Insider that after a few friends and family sent her TikTok videos at the end of 2020, she recognized her voice due to the tonality and pitch.
But she was hired previously by an “Institute of Acoustics” claiming to be based out of Scotland to do some Chinese translations. She was never informed that her voice would be used on TikTok.
Using her voice on this social media platform was not part of her agreement and which was the reason for the lawsuit.
Beverley also mentions that she is not suing for money but she also wants everyone to know that she works as a voice over artist every single day. She trains and teaches to get to this level and TikTok can’t just take it as this is her livelihood.
TikTok is using her voice without acknowledging it or compensating for her work. A lot of people agree with her and they have rallied against TikTok on Facebook with the #standingwithbev.