French Court Establishes Autonomous Legal Protection for Voice in Art

On June 24, 2026, the French Court of Cassation ruled that a person's voice is an autonomous attribute of personality, protected under Article 9 of the Civil Code, similar to one's image. The decision arose from a dispute between journalist Fabien Lecœuvre and artist Grand Corps Malade, who incorporated unauthorized audio samples of Lecœuvre's controversial remarks into his song 'Des gens beaux' (2021). The Court found that the Paris Court of Appeal failed to conduct a proportionality test between privacy rights and freedom of expression/artistic creation, and thus annulled the lower court's ruling that had forced Grand Corps Malade to remove the samples. The case will be retried. This landmark ruling imposes new obligations on artists and art market professionals: artists must prove that unauthorized use of a voice or image directly contributes to a debate of general interest and is proportionate, a difficult standard as seen in past cases where Luc Delahaye and François-Marie Bannier prevailed, but Peter Klasen and Jeff Koons did not. Museums, galleries, and auction houses must now verify the rights chain for works incorporating personality elements and update contractual documentation. The decision, reported by Pierre Noual in Le Journal des Arts, underscores the growing legal risks in artistic creation involving voice or likeness.