TTS, TikTok, and Working in AI Voice with Bev Standing

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Hi there, and welcome to Vox Talk, your weekly review from the world of Voiceover. I'm your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli. From Voices. On today's show, Bev Standing joins us from her Niagara area studio to talk about her experience with AI voice, specifically when her voice was used by a major social media platform without her knowledge. Bev is a professional voice talent and also a coach. You may remember Bev from our 2022 State of Voiceover Report as one of the most trusted coaches that we have here in Voiceoverland. Welcome to the show, Bev.

Bev Standing:

Thank you so much. What an intro. Thank you, Stephanie. I'm thrilled to be here.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, pleasure to see you. So, Beth, can you tell me and all of us, frankly, about the day that you found out your voice was being used without your permission?

Bev Standing:

Well, it was an interesting day. It was November. Oddly enough, it was November 2020, I think. Gosh, it seems like ten years ago, yet it seems like yesterday. And a colleague of mine who lives in Europe sent me a Tik Tok video, and I didn't even know what TikTok was. And they sent me a TikTok video and said, this is your voice, right? I know your voice. And Stephanie, I think you know my voice. A lot of people send me stuff and go, this is you, right? And I don't know, that's not me. So I really expected to go click. And it wasn't going to be me, and it was me. And I went, wow, that's kind of cool. What is this? She explained to me what it was, and I went, oh, not so cool. Oh, wow. But interestingly enough, it must have just been put on the platform. So for those that I don't think I said this, TikTok was using a text to speech voice that was mine. And so within 24 hours, I had tons of people sending me, mom, this is your voice. Hey, Bev, this is your voice. Like my kids and everything. And I'm going, yes. This is a bigger deal than I realized. So that was my first reaction, was, wow.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. Wow. Oh my gosh, yikes. And it's a scary feeling to have your voice coming out of an app or anything where everyone can hear it all over the world, and especially if you weren't expecting that. So how did this make you feel, Bev?

Bev Standing:

Again, at the beginning, it was like, wow, this is cool. So I downloaded TikTok, and I made a video of my foot, and it said, I typed in, I make small videos about absolutely nothing. And then I hit text to speech, and I just went, OMG. For lack of swearing on the air.

I knew instantly, instantly, just from that where that audio was recorded. And that bothered me the most because I knew where it came from.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, goodness. So what were the first steps that you took to get help?

Bev Standing:

I talked to some really established people within the industry and said, look, this has happened. I had no idea what to do. I really didn't. And they all said, I think you should talk to a lawyer. So I did. Yeah, I did. And that took months before the actual lawsuit was filed. There were a lot of questions on both ends trying to confirm that where I said, I know the files were from, were actually from, and looking at the contract I had with them and making sure all the things were right before I went public because there was a lot more involved. And like I said, it's not so that just you hear my voice all the time. They were able to make me say whatever they wanted to, and that's really not my brand. I have all these light colors and swirly things and I'm just this happy go lucky person. And some of the videos I had sent to me were a lot of square words. Oh, gosh, I should have at least had a say, and I didn't. So I think that's where I got most upset is that you weren't my client.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Bev Standing:

I was just going to say, the fact is, I know a lot of people go, yeah, but your voice is going to be heard by literally millions, if not billions of people around the world. And I said, yeah, but they're not my client. This is a business first, and I'm a voice actor second. I'm running my own business and I have to protect my product for lack of a better way to say that you have a brand.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right. And as you were saying, your imagery and the way you choose to promote yourself, the jobs that you would take or not take, obviously this did not fit into the category of a job that Bev standing would jump right up and say, I'll do this voice, right? No.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh my gosh, okay. Well, that is wild because I can't even imagine Bev what was going, like, all the emotions of that. But I'm so glad that you did get a lawyer and all this is taken care of. It's all sorted now.

Bev Standing:

It is, yeah.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

So that's really good just to wonder about this for the benefit of everyone who's listening now, the misuse of your voice, it happened on such a massive scale. Like, billions of people likely heard your voice doing whatever it was, and I think I probably even heard it, and I'm like, wait a minute, you're not thinking of the moment. Wow. I think that voice was stolen. Like, it's not occurring to you, right. All you're thinking is, oh, there's a voice and it's doing something. So for you, it being just so ubiquitous, it's everywhere. People telling you right, left and center in the first 24 hours, that's easy. People can spot that kind of theft, if you will, for voice. But that said, not every unauthorized use of voiceover is as high profile or as easy to track as what happened with yours was. So what would you recommend that talent do to monitor for any unapproved uses of their voice?

Bev Standing:

I wish I had an answer for that, Stephanie. I really do. And that's just it. I mean, a lot of the work I do, people say, well, where would I hear you? And I'm like, well, do you live in small town USA? You might have heard me on a radio spot six months ago, right. Or do you work for Microsoft? You might have heard me doing some elearning stuff. I do a lot of stuff. You won't hear me, so how do I know? I don't. I'm looking into NFTs. I think all our stuff should be we can't watermark it, but if we could track it and know where it's played, I don't know. There's got to be some technological wonder that will come out that will allow us to do that because the world is just so big. So the bottom line is if you pay me accordingly upfront, then using it somewhere else may not matter so much, right?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. And that's the whole thing, is that you want clients to pay you for the work that you do, and you also want to know if someone has taken work that you've frankly, maybe haven't paid for already, but by someone else.

Bev Standing:

Right. So that job that you had done before was for a different company altogether and then all of a sudden it ends up on TikTok. And I have actually been contacted by companies that want to run ads that have had videos made on TikTok and they're saying, hey, we want to use this somewhere else. Can we use this? And we'll get a contract going and we'll license your voice and that's fine. But not everybody does that. And when you start getting companies using, for example, there's people on there that if they promote a product and they get enough followers and stuff, they get paid. Meanwhile, it's my voice promoting the product and that's what I do for a living. So I don't know how to track it. I don't know how to track it. I wish I could. I love my agents because they track it. Stuff that you do through there gets tracked. And I think it's important that the everyday person, not even a voice actor, understands that. I got a number of emails that were really nasty, quote unquote, I've ruined TikTok because they took my voice down. I can't really millennial type videos made going, I just can't use this new voice. It doesn't work with my brand. I had a student that was making cat videos. She literally stopped because it was because my voice were her cats voices and she couldn't just change it and she wanted to pay me to keep doing it. But she was a student. She just liked doing cat videos and it was like so I get all these nasty notes that you've earned. It's just your voice. It's not just my voice. I will repeat, it is my product. If I owned a car, you couldn't come and just take it and drive it around the world.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. Wow, I never even thought of that, but absolutely not. No one should ever take someone else's car and drive it all around the world without permission.

Bev Standing:

I can make a car and give you a set of keys that will cost you. Yeah, you can't take my car, right?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

No, absolutely. And your voice print is unique and it's your product, it's integral to what you do. And so, obviously, when you say your businesswoman first and then you have your voice over in the voice aspect. So because you do treat your voice over business as a business and not just some fun thing to do, this is a very serious matter. So I'm really glad that you do take it so seriously. And hopefully those listening who maybe aren't seeing it quite in that light yet, before this conversation will start to think differently about how they protect their brand, about what their brand even is, to define who they are and the source of work that they want to do and to be known for.

Bev Standing:

Absolutely. And I just want to add that's one of the reasons I went forward with this and one of the reasons I stalled going forward, because I was told the minute this gets filed, the media will be on my doorstep. And they literally were on my doorstep. I was interviewed by I can't tell you how many people I was on radio shows. I had a camera crew at my front door, phone calls. It was incessant. For the first month, I'm still getting contacted and I needed to know if I was going to be able to handle it in the fact that I just felt it was really important. This was like an opportunity for the industry to be woken up. Both sides of the fence, people were using voices. Maybe they, like the average person, don't understand the complications or the negatives that happen to a talent. So if I do a voiceover for I'm hired by Coke and someone on TikTok creates an ad for Pepsi, can I get sued? Because I said I wouldn't, and there I am. It was really important to me, beyond all the compensation part of it, it was more important for me to stand up for the industry in general and just say, this needs to have a big bright light shone on it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I'm glad you did. That's interesting. You bring up conflicts. So, yeah, if you're the voice of this brand and then someone uses an AI version of your voice to promote the competing product, because that's not supposed to happen. You're not supposed to be doing both brands and being the voice of both, or you're not supposed to over saturate a market with certain voices and you're not supposed to do many things. And that's why the AI component has definitely created new issues to be aware of, I think, for the industry.

Bev Standing:

Absolutely.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Given what's happened with TikTok and everything, what's your current perspective on AI voice and has that changed?

Bev Standing:

I think it's changed in the fact that that bright light did shine and those rays got a little further than they would have any other way. I think that there are AI companies out there that are creating voices that are so beneficial to the industry. There's people that don't have a voice. How wonderful would it be for a twelve year old who has no vocal cords being able to use a machine to talk, but sounds like a twelve year old or a female, to not sound like a 90 year old male or a robot, like just give them some dignity back, give them that ability to be more who they are. There's so many people that are not fully capable. I'll just say because there's so many branches to that, this is an advantage to them. There's also an opportunity, if you're working with the right company, be compensated to have an AI voice. And those are the AI companies I am working with. I've created AI voices and they are then licensed out. They're not sold and they are licensed out for specific things like real estate per se, or company IVRs. But I get a say in the matter and I receive compensation. It can work.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, it does sound like it can. And mainly because you're voicing for products or services that you are happy to voice for, but also because there's a licensing agreement. So what does that look like for you? Do they renew your voice every year or like...

Bev Standing:

it hasn't been a year yet, so I don't know. I'm hoping, but it could be well, let's just say it's an elearning company and every year they update the percentages of something or the line 2021 has to change to 2022. They can just go in and change that. And so they license me for a year or whatever and that works and it's done like that, like in an instant. They don't have to worry that I'm not voicing anymore. They don't have to worry that I'm on vacation or I got a new mic or I'm in a new booth and my sound is that's who you get, right?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right. It's very consistent. One thing that can be said for AI voices, that the studio quality is not going to change from take to take or read to read, because it's literally the voice that was recorded initially and then spliced up in various ways for the purposes they're using it for. But yeah, that's really interesting to hear that you are still working in AI voice, like it hasn't turned you off the whole business of AI voice, but you do look at it differently a bit.

Bev Standing:

I do. And years ago, just before I started, everybody went to auditions, auditions were at studios and whatnot. When I was starting out, I discovered voices.com and I found out I could audition from home and record from home. And then the other sites came up and my career is now to a point where online casting isn't really a big part of it, but it was great starting out and it made me a lot of great clients. And if I had said, no, I'm just going to go to studios to record, because that's new and I don't get it, I wouldn't have that work. Flip ahead to covid, very established talent, big LA talent, went to studios to record. You think for a second they didn't have a studio built in their house so they could keep working. They did. Did they know how to edit? No. Do they now? Yes. Right. So I look at AI and go, you know what? I can go, no, not touching it. Or I can say, you know what? This is here to stay and I need to understand it, and I need to work with companies. And I just got asked to be on a roster and it was like, hey, we're going to do this. And it said, well, we can reuse your stuff. And I went, no, let's talk about that, because if the other people don't know and the AI companies don't understand why we're bawking, then they'd be more willing to work with us. And so this guy said, hey, let me go back to my legal company. My legal department will get back to you. Right. So if you don't talk about it, and if it wasn't brought to light, there'd be a lot of people out of work. I don't think the human voice will ever disappear. As good as AI is, there are many, many ways that you cannot replace the human voice, the human emotion, the human just that goes within a word, that kind of thing. And that's special. And as AI is coming, so are new audio opportunities. So you just can't. I don't think you can just go, no, not doing it. I think you're closing the door and I think it's better to open the door and keep your ears open and talk to the other side.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, that's great advice, because it's an opportunity. Lots of people do see these kind of technological advancements as threats. And I know initially that's definitely what people were thinking a few years ago, oh, it'll never be as good. And all of a sudden this are getting better and better. It's like, can you tell that this is a robot or a human? And people are tricked. I've been tricked by these things where they play back, you have to know what to listen for. But it's getting better every time. Largely, I think, because they're using such talented voice actors who know how to inflect properly and how to give various takes. And would you say that that has something to do with it, Bev?

Bev Standing:

I think it's more the directive you get, and that's the people on the other side of the glass that are doing the work. My voice, for one company, has been rebuilt three times because technology gets better, right? So to go back to the job that I did, I had to record 10,000 sentences all sounding exactly the same. But other voices, the scripts that I've used, give me an opportunity to have emotion, to ask a question, to be concerned or angry or whatever. My TikTok voice had none of that. It was ‘sound happy, sound this way, and make every sentence sound the same’, no matter how horrible the text was.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, it's like you're saying, like, really bad news to someone, but with a huge smile on your face. I totally get it. I think there's a lot of nuance that the AI needs to learn. I guess it's the whole machine learning aspect of what's going on, so

Bev Standing:

Which is also improving. So once they have your audio, if you have enough audio, you can just revisit that and recreate it. But that costs lots of money.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

These companies that are rebuilding your voice, every time they get their tech improved, are they footing the bill for that? We need to update this. Or do you because it's like your voice and you own it or whatever, do you have to go and do that?

Bev Standing:

No, it's done for you. Okay, but I'm their product.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, that makes sense. So obviously, AI voice here to stay, not going anywhere. Don't put your head in the sand. This is an opportunity. Don't be left behind. But yeah. So I know we've talked about licensing, we talked about these jobs and contracts probably even are looked at a little bit differently now, too. Is there a new kind of lens that you look at voiceover contracts through because of what's happened?

Bev Standing:

I do, yes. The word licensing is done all over Europe. Here, it's in perpetuity. It's like, no, stop doing that here. I'm going to license my voice. That's a big deal. Make sure you have a contract with something, especially if you get into an TTS situation, make sure you have a contract. Make sure nothing is just verbal. For example, my job was simply emails back and forth. And good to know is that if I email you Stephanie and saying, ‘hey, I'm willing to pay you $10,000 to do all this work, is that okay?’ And you don't reply, that's not an agreement. You have to acknowledge that. Yes, I'm in agreement to that. There has to be a two-way conversation on that. But I'm still amazed when I see text to speech jobs posted and they say right in the description, ‘this is in perpetuity. We can use it and do whatever we want with it. If you're not in agreement, don't audition.’ And they say, want 30 auditions and 15 of them are already filled. And I'm like, okay, the message is not getting out. People do not realize that this can actually damage you down the road. And down the road could be tomorrow, could be ten years from now, but it's going to come back and bite you.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, well, it's just the whole idea of, well, let's say you're the voice of an airline and then all of a sudden this other airline is using text to speech and your voice happens to be one that they like, I'm just remembering back in a conversation. This is absolutely not really other than just the concept here, but with Susan Bennett, with what happened with her voice, basically, Apple had gone and looked at a bunch of voices that they liked that were already prefab AI voices and like, ‘yeah, we like that one, that one, that one,’ and there's your first four voices for Siri. In the various countries that they were used or areas of the world. You could easily be a voice just like that and be picked to do something by, say a competitor to a brand that you have a long standing relationship with that you are getting license agreements and renewals and all of a sudden it's like oh-oh! you're voicing for this airline and all of a sudden you're also voicing for that airline and you had no idea. And I don't even know what would happen. Obviously within their industry, they probably notice first and then they'd be like, you're using the voice that we have. What did you do? And presumably all that would happen between those two airlines. They'd have to hash it out. But yeah, as a voice talent, that is a risk you're running. If you do say, I'm a voice available for hire, and the company that's promoting that AI voice is not saying, ‘oh, well, you can't use it for this purpose, that purpose, for that purpose,’ then all of a sudden you've left yourself wide open.

Bev Standing:

Absolutely. Yeah. And you really should be aware of that because you never know when that next opportunity is going to walk through the door and you're going to be handed it to on a golden platter and you have to say no. I mean, maybe there needs to be a contract, a clause in a contract that says something to the effect of I as a person will not work for any others, but this does not include should an AI voice show up down the road, like somehow take that away from us being a problem, then maybe it wouldn't be so much of a concern. I still say you need to work with transparent companies who are ethical and are willing to pay you for your time. Some companies will pay you to create a voice. I had one company that said, we'll pay you to make the voice, but we also want to figure out how we can compensate you if your voice is licensed. Like, they were just starting out, right? So it was like, ‘okay, yes, I'd be interested in talking to you too.’ But they weren't doing that to date. They were just paying you to make a voice. And that better be a lot of money because of the repercussions that may happen. Right?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah, absolutely.

Bev Standing:

And your time, it's incredible. I thought 10 hours of audio wasn't going to take too much time. It was pretty simple stuff. I had dinner, then I went to the store. I met Stephanie for lunch. She drove to my house. That's the TikTok voice, right?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah.

Bev Standing:

And that was pretty easy stuff. It still took me three months back and forth with them to get done. Because you recorded a certain time of day, you do all the stuff. Right. So there's a huge time commitment to creating an AI voice that should be recognized if you don't get paid to make the voice. It should absolutely be recognized when you license your voice and how often you ask at the beginning, how are you going to track your voice? Well, if you're licensed, it's a lot easier. Put yourself if you are a US. Citizen right now. And I said, okay. I only do D comes before R, so Democratic spots. I will not do Republican. And then all of a sudden, my voice shows up as a Republican AI voice. I guaranteed they'd come after me.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, yeah, that's like a whole other level I think of. It is emotional. Yeah, for sure.

Bev Standing:

It's so there. So you got to know. So maybe a clause that says, should an AI voice appear, don't come to me. Come to the AI company.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, I think it would have to, because you can't possibly, as an artist, be held accountable, I would think. Anyway, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just trying to think this through out loud. It's the companies themselves, I think, that need to be sensitive to these things and to know what the artist has worked on in the past, or we've agreed to use her voice for so many years for this kind of application, and because of that, she's agreed to not do this kind of work for three years in order to align with what they need. But yeah, I know exactly. You want to protect yourself. You want to know where your voice is being used and how and for who, right, and for what purpose. So we've talked a lot about the contracts and language and what should possibly be in these contracts. Obviously, if someone is concerned, they should always go to their own legal counsel. I know that was useful for you, but that's just a takeaway. I think any time we talk about these issues, it's always very individual to a situation, and that's why we can't generalize too, too much, because you never know. Are there any key takeaways, Bev, that you've learned from this experience that you'd like to share with your fellow voice talent?

Bev Standing:

I think the biggest one is just to treat your business like a business. Even if you're just starting, you need to look at the details outside of the work and there's a lot of information that's free out there. If you get offered a job that you're not sure of, take it to an agent, take it to a lawyer, have them look over a contract, tell your client, there's some details I just need answered. Here's my questions. Ask questions you don't want to jump on and be that, well, I'm not doing it. If you're going to sell my voice, just say, I'd like to know where the voice is being used and if they come back with an answer, then you have a contract saying and if it shows up somewhere else, like, learn to protect yourself somehow at the most basic level of the jobs you do. It's a learning curve for everybody. But go in with your eyes wide open and your ears wide open, probably bigger than your mouth, really listen to what the industry is doing. And I will say I'm surprised to date that I'll be put on rosters and I say, okay, full transparency. You know I'm the voice of TikTok, right? They go, ‘the what?’ It's like, ‘okay, I didn't get to the other side of the glass as much as I'd hoped.’ I didn't get to the production people as broad as I would have liked to. So it's important that voice talent keep this conversation going. Don't let it just die and go, ‘oh yeah, that got solved,’ my case got solved. But in general, the problem still is there.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right and they have a new voice, right?

Bev Standing

Yeah, they do have a new voice. Okay. They have several new voices.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh wow. They don't do the cat voices nearly as well as you do.

Bev Standing:

Well, you may hear it again one day, you never know, never say never. But, yeah, they've got about, I don't know on my app. I don't really not an avid TikToker, but I think I can access six every once in a while, I just go find out if I'm back on, but I'm not. You never know.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, I guess and we're not going to get into the details of all of that, we're just talking about the concept in general. But I'm glad that it all got sorted out for you, Bev, and that you did start this to shine more light into this area of just how voices are used and AI voice in particular, because this is a huge opportunity now, we've been having many conversations on AI voice with various people, yourself included, of just where this technology is going. Is it a good idea for voice sound to be involved? And the answer is almost always, yes, it's a good idea for voice sound to be involved. It's just a matter of how, and making sure that everyone gets on the same page with that and just looking forward to speaking to even other companies that are creating these voices, for instance, and having them come on. If anyone is listening now and they've really enjoyed this interview with Bev, and you probably really liked the one with Susan too, then send me your questions because we're actively interviewing people on this topic from various parts of the industry and beyond our industry for the implications of this very much #voicefirst issue that we're facing. I think that if I could just wrap it all up in a nice little bow, it's that you really need talent to be thinking like they're in a business and to be treating it as such.

Bev Standing:

Yeah. And AI is just the next step, and after AI will be something else. So accept it and learn about it, right. And ask the questions to the clients. Let them learn your perspective.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I love it. They need to know how you feel. They need to know what you think, right! So,

Bev Standing:

Right. A lot of times they probably go, oh, I didn't even think about that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right.

Bev Standing:

Like that other company that said, oh, well, then let's talk about licensing your voice on top of paying you. It's like, okay, now we're talking, because they understood why I was asking the questions, why I was bringing it to light. So, yeah, I think it's important. Like you said, just one big ball is go in with your eyes open, ask the questions, make sure you have some sort of an agreement, either email or a contract and pay attention because it's not going away.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Awesome. So, Bev, obviously you're a coach. You do voiceover, you're wonderful. There's got to be a place people can go to find out more about you and what you do. So where can we go learn more about you?

Bev Standing:

Well, my branding was really complicated. It's my name. So bevstanding.com YouTube. Just look upstanding at bevstanding. It's just my name, but I also am a territory controller for Gravy for the Brain, and I'm one of a pair in Toronto for Gravy for the Brain Canada. Although I mentor people from all around the world through that site. So Gravyforthebrain.com, go check that out. It's a great learning platform for people all around the world, and that's mostly where I do my coaching.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wonderful. Well, thank you for coming on the show, Beth.

Bev Standing:

Thank you, Stephanie. Thanks for bringing this conversation to that next level and hopefully continuing it. So thank you.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

You're welcome. And that's the way we saw the world through the lens of Voice Over this week. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you very much to our special guest, Bev Standing. She is amazing, as you've heard. I hope you've learned a lot from the life lessons that we've been sharing today, especially around how to treat your voice over business like a business like legitimately a business and also be thinking ahead and asking questions and just if you ever feel like you are trying to figure something out, you have a whole voiceover community here that is wanting to help you out. There's so many great groups. You can talk to various people and you can also email [email protected] if you have some other questions you'd like to ask. But for now, I think we are just going to let you settle back into whatever. Dear listener, I hope you took some notes. Thank you for joining me. I'm Stephanie Ciccarelli from Voices. Our engineer is Geoff Bremner. We look forward to seeing you next week.