3 ms·

"signing away a voice for a few grand" I sure hope not. That is equal to a few pennies in the grand scheme of things. Someone signing away their voice (not tha

by kup0 4y ago

"signing away a voice for a few grand" I sure hope not. That is equal to a few pennies in the grand scheme of things. Someone signing away their voice (not that I agree anyone ever should, for any reason) should require enormous compensation in return at a minimum.

valdiorn 4y ago
How is signing away your "voiceprint" to be used for automatic speech generation any different than people recording lines for national transport systems, for example? They spend a couple of weeks in a recording booth, recording every number "one/two/three..." and every placename on the map, as well as dozens of announcements. you may have never heard of Emma Clarke, but if you live in the UK you've heard her voice a thousand times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Clarke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Clarke Imagine if instead of having to record every number, placename, announcement, she could just read a short script, and then every possible message could be autogenerated from that. the end result would be the same for her, but much less work. Now think about models who do photoshoots. They get paid for individual photoshoots, just like Emma got paid for providing her voice for that one particular customer (the TFL). But if you can't afford custom model photos for your website/brochure, you can go to a stock image bank and just find some decent photos. You may not have heard of András István Arató but I'm sure you know his face: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hide_the_Pain_Harold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hide_the_Pain_Harold Extend these two concepts to voiceover, and you arrive at the fact that "voiceprint stock libraries" are a guaranteed eventuality. Emma and Andras were both willing to sell their voice and image to someone. In Andras' case, he doesn't even know who the end-user is. Instead of just choosing from a set of Andras stock photographs, you might also purchase a license to his voice, and use it to overdub your advertisement. - because someone, maybe not you, but someone, will be happy to take a few grand and let people use their voice, just like people sell their photos to stock libraries.
account42 4y ago
I'm not sure how the likeness rights work here. What if the studio hired a human doing a really good impression of the actor? And while popular existing actors might be able to demand enourmous compensation right now, I'm not really sure what level of compensation they deserve. In the end, we are probably moving towards entirely fictional actors for most movies anyway.
- FearNotDaniel 4y ago
  > What if the studio hired a human doing a really good impression of the actor? They already do this regularly in movies, it's part of the ADR process [0]. You've probably heard it many times and not even noticed. [0] https://www.insider.com/voice-matching-in-movies-2016-3 https://www.insider.com/voice-matching-in-movies-2016-3
- kup0 4y ago
  I suppose I'm looking at it from a more distant, human perspective, just in that, for any human to sign over rights to their voice or likeness is to fundamentally sever a significant level of autonomy / agency from themselves- which gives me chills for multiple reasons, but from a work perspective, essentially puts themselves out of certain forms of work / voluntarily obsoletes others' need for their work. I just kind of shudder at the thought of a voice actor signing over rights to their voice without appropriate compensation and their career just vanishing (assuming AI gets good enough to outright replace them completely) In my view, any human that signs over such rights deserves to be well-compensated upfront and should ensure they have a contract that pays them significant royalties for each subsequent use. I suppose maybe the most important part of all of this work-wise is just to have a reasonable contract so one retains some control. Of course, all of this I say with the disclaimer that I'm not certain I think anyone should sign over such rights. I freely admit I come at this from a perspective that is biased against audio/visual/text-generating (and potentially other forms of) AI, unless it is significantly reigned in through restrictions/regulations. I do not look forward to an AI-dominated future of soulless pseudo-art generated by entertainment corporations.
BizarroLand 4y ago
I wouldn't mind my voice being used, but I would want ongoing royalties with a copyright ownership of my voice, so that 70 years after my death my voice might still be making my family money.

by kup0 4y ago

valdiorn 4y ago

How is signing away your "voiceprint" to be used for automatic speech generation any different than people recording lines for national transport systems, for example? They spend a couple of weeks in a recording booth, recording every number "one/two/three..." and every placename on the map, as well as dozens of announcements. you may have never heard of Emma Clarke, but if you live in the UK you've heard her voice a thousand times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Clarke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Clarke Imagine if instead of having to record every number, placename, announcement, she could just read a short script, and then every possible message could be autogenerated from that. the end result would be the same for her, but much less work. Now think about models who do photoshoots. They get paid for individual photoshoots, just like Emma got paid for providing her voice for that one particular customer (the TFL). But if you can't afford custom model photos for your website/brochure, you can go to a stock image bank and just find some decent photos. You may not have heard of András István Arató but I'm sure you know his face: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hide_the_Pain_Harold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hide_the_Pain_Harold Extend these two concepts to voiceover, and you arrive at the fact that "voiceprint stock libraries" are a guaranteed eventuality. Emma and Andras were both willing to sell their voice and image to someone. In Andras' case, he doesn't even know who the end-user is. Instead of just choosing from a set of Andras stock photographs, you might also purchase a license to his voice, and use it to overdub your advertisement. - because someone, maybe not you, but someone, will be happy to take a few grand and let people use their voice, just like people sell their photos to stock libraries.

account42 4y ago

I'm not sure how the likeness rights work here. What if the studio hired a human doing a really good impression of the actor? And while popular existing actors might be able to demand enourmous compensation right now, I'm not really sure what level of compensation they deserve. In the end, we are probably moving towards entirely fictional actors for most movies anyway.

FearNotDaniel 4y ago
> What if the studio hired a human doing a really good impression of the actor? They already do this regularly in movies, it's part of the ADR process [0]. You've probably heard it many times and not even noticed. [0] https://www.insider.com/voice-matching-in-movies-2016-3 https://www.insider.com/voice-matching-in-movies-2016-3
kup0 4y ago
I suppose I'm looking at it from a more distant, human perspective, just in that, for any human to sign over rights to their voice or likeness is to fundamentally sever a significant level of autonomy / agency from themselves- which gives me chills for multiple reasons, but from a work perspective, essentially puts themselves out of certain forms of work / voluntarily obsoletes others' need for their work. I just kind of shudder at the thought of a voice actor signing over rights to their voice without appropriate compensation and their career just vanishing (assuming AI gets good enough to outright replace them completely) In my view, any human that signs over such rights deserves to be well-compensated upfront and should ensure they have a contract that pays them significant royalties for each subsequent use. I suppose maybe the most important part of all of this work-wise is just to have a reasonable contract so one retains some control. Of course, all of this I say with the disclaimer that I'm not certain I think anyone should sign over such rights. I freely admit I come at this from a perspective that is biased against audio/visual/text-generating (and potentially other forms of) AI, unless it is significantly reigned in through restrictions/regulations. I do not look forward to an AI-dominated future of soulless pseudo-art generated by entertainment corporations.

BizarroLand 4y ago

I wouldn't mind my voice being used, but I would want ongoing royalties with a copyright ownership of my voice, so that 70 years after my death my voice might still be making my family money.