Hebrew voice of Waze sues Apple for using her voice for Siri

“The longtime voice of Waze navigation app in Hebrew is suing Apple for using her voice for Siri,” Lital Dobrovitsky reports for CTech. She takes particular issue with the type of content her voice is coaxed into saying as Apple’s digital voice assistant. ‘Her voice on the Siri app is nothing but syllables joined together by an algorithm,’ Apple said in response.”
“The approximately $66,000 (NIS 250,000) lawsuit was filed Wednesday to a Tel Aviv District Court,” Dobrovitsky reports. “Israeli radio broadcaster and voice artist Galit Gura-Eini, the voice of Waze’s first female navigation directions in Hebrew, alleges that Apple has been using her voice recordings without authorization. Gura-Eini claims she was surprised to learn she was now the voice of Siri when the app launched in Hebrew in 2016. Earlier this year, Gura-Eini approached Apple requesting her voice be removed from the Siri app, but the request was denied.”
“Gura-Eini’s voice was recorded in 2007 by the local subsidiary of Burlington, Massachusetts-base speech recognition company Nuance Communications Inc. The suit claims Gura-Eini gave Nuance the rights to use the recordings in speech production software, and for what she called ‘legitimate’ purposes only,” Dobrovitsky reports. “Apple, through its lawyer Amir Halevy, claims as part of the suit it legally obtained the rights to Gura-Eini’s recordings from Nuance.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: She gave the rights to her voice to Nuance. Apple licenses her syllables from Nuance. Case closed. It’s not Apple’s fault that Gura-Eini didn’t think far enough ahead to make a better deal with Nuance in 2007.
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