Is an AI-generated voice that sounds like a radio host a use of that host’s identity? A California court isn’t saying yes, but it isn’t saying no either. Former NPR host David Greene’s suit against Google over NotebookLM now moves ahead, with the facts still to be fought out.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Shella Deen overruled Google LLC’s demurrer, a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the claims, to all four causes of action in David Greene’s complaint. She sustained Alphabet Inc.’s demurrer with leave to amend. Greene has 10 days from notice of the order to file an amended complaint limited to allegations about Alphabet’s liability. The ruling does not decide whether Greene’s claims are true; at this stage the court takes the complaint’s allegations as true.
Greene hosted NPR’s Morning Edition for almost 10 years, hosted the Up First podcast, and reported on the White House for NPR for four years. He now hosts Left, Right & Center and other podcasts. He alleges Google used recordings of his voice to create the default male voice for the Audio Overviews feature in NotebookLM, then used that voice to market and sell the product without his permission.
Audio Overviews, introduced in September 2024, turns documents a user uploads into a podcast-style conversation between two AI hosts, one male and one female. According to the complaint, Google offers NotebookLM through paid subscriptions, including the $19.99-per-month Google One AI Premium tier, and used the voice in a December 2024 Spotify partnership. The complaint cites listeners who wrote that the male voice “sounds exactly like” Greene, and a forensic voice-recognition firm that found “relatively high” evidence of a match.
Greene filed Jan. 23. Google moved the case to federal court, and a US District Court judge in the Northern District of California sent it back July 23. His four claims are a statutory right of publicity under California Civil Code section 3344, unfair competition, common law misappropriation, and quasi-contract and unjust enrichment. He seeks damages, restitution, disgorgement, and injunctive relief.
Google argued the complaint shows only that Greene’s journalism, not his voice, is well known. Judge Deen disagreed. “That distinction is difficult to maintain for a radio broadcaster,” she wrote. “A radio host reaches the audience through the voice, and it is reasonable to infer that the voice is widely known.”
The court rejected Google’s argument that the Copyright Act preempts the claims, finding a voice is not copyrightable and that the claims concern the program’s outputs, not its inputs. It noted that Senate Bill 1111, signed Sept. 30, adds digital replicas to section 3344 effective Jan. 1, 2027. The court did not decide whether the change applies to earlier conduct and said its ruling does not depend on it.
Google must respond within 10 days after service of any amended complaint or, if Greene does not amend, within 10 days after the amendment period expires. No statements from either side accompanied the order.
Judge Deen also stressed the ruling’s limits. “Whether Google actually made the male host’s voice from Greene’s recordings or from another source that merely resembles him is a factual question,” she wrote, adding that “the court recognizes that this is a novel application of a statute enacted well before generative AI.”
