What happened

  • Paul Lehrman and Linnea Sage, voice-over actors in New York, sued Lovo, Inc. (Case No. 24-CV-3770) in May 2024 as a putative class action. Lovo sells a text-to-speech subscription service and an AI product called Genny that can make a voice "clone."
  • The actors say they were hired through Fiverr, by people later identified as Lovo employees, to record scripts for "research purposes" that were described as internal and academic. Lehrman was paid $1,200. The complaint says Lovo then used their recordings to train Genny and to create and market clones of their voices, including one named "Sally Coleman" that Sage found available to Lovo's subscribers.
  • Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on September 25, 2024. Lovo moved to dismiss all claims on November 25, 2024. The court ruled on July 10, 2025 (Dkt. 45).
  • The claims include New York Civil Rights Law sections 50 and 51, New York consumer protection law, the Lanham Act, the Copyright Act, breach of contract, fraud, conversion and unjust enrichment.

What the court said

  • Copyright, partly survives: Sage's claim based on Lovo's use of her original voice recording, including in marketing, survives. Claims that Lovo infringed by using the recordings to train Genny were dismissed with leave to amend because the complaint never explained "what training is or how it works." Claims that the voice clones themselves infringe failed: the Copyright Act's sound-recording provision (17 U.S.C. § 114(b)) excludes new recordings that imitate or simulate a protected one, and plaintiffs did not allege Genny outputs exact copies of their recordings.
  • Fair use and license: the court did not decide fair use. It said Lovo's one-sentence fair use argument was not enough and that Lovo was "free to plead fair use in a more thorough fashion" if the plaintiffs amend. It also declined, at this stage, to accept Lovo's argument that Fiverr's terms licensed training, because the actors plausibly alleged their chat messages limited the use to academic research or test scripts.
  • Trademark: the Lanham Act false association and false advertising claims were dismissed.
  • New York publicity law: this is where the case lives. The court held that the Civil Rights Law sections 50 and 51 can apply to voice clones. It reasoned that New York courts already treated computer-generated images as a "portrait" and saw no sign the legislature meant to exclude audio-only clones.
  • Consumer protection and contract: both survive, with the Statute of Frauds issue left for a later stage.
  • Next step ordered: plaintiffs had 14 days to say whether they would amend the training-based copyright claims; otherwise Lovo would answer.

What it means for your firm

  • Our reading: if a client's voice, face or likeness is cloned by AI, the strongest claim in this court was state publicity law, not copyright. For clients in New York, check Civil Rights Law sections 50 and 51 first.
  • Contracts and platform terms matter. The "research only" assurances on Fiverr were the basis for the contract claim, and the platform license was Lovo's defense. Written limits on use are evidence.
  • Training claims need technical pleading. The court dismissed them for vagueness and said information-and-belief pleading with public sources can work. Plaintiffs' counsel should plead how training reproduces the work.
  • For defense-side clients: the fair use defense was not decided and the court signaled it must be argued with the factors, not asserted.
  • This is a pleading-stage opinion from July 2025. Later amendments, discovery or a settlement would not appear here.

What to do Monday

  1. When a client hires voice talent or buys voice data for AI work, add a clause that states exactly whether recordings may be used to train or clone, and keep the platform terms that apply.
  2. If a client's voice or likeness has been cloned, record the date and place each clone appeared and whether it was marketed, since the court treated marketing use of an original recording as a live claim.
  3. For New York matters, add Civil Rights Law sections 50 and 51 to your claim checklist next to copyright and the Lanham Act.
  4. Pull the live S.D.N.Y. docket for 24-CV-3770 before citing this opinion and note the date you checked.

Sources

Questions and answers

What did the court decide in Lehrman v. Lovo?

On July 10, 2025 it granted Lovo's motion to dismiss in part. State publicity, consumer protection and contract claims proceeded, as did Sage's copyright claim over her original recording. The training-based copyright claims were dismissed with leave to amend, and the Lanham Act and most other claims were dismissed.

Can a voice be copyrighted?

Not as such, according to this opinion. The court said the Copyright Act covers discrete expressions, not voices as such, and that a new recording that merely imitates a voice is not copying. A specific recording can still be protected, and Sage's claim over her original recording survived.

Is the case over?

The opinion does not say. It ordered plaintiffs to state within 14 days whether they would amend their training claims, and what followed is not in this opinion.

Operational information, not legal advice. Facts come from the filings on the court docket linked under Sources, read on Oct 27, 2026. A docket moves: this brief covers only the filings we read and does not replace the live docket. The reading of what it means for your firm is ours.