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Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad
- jader201 3y agoOriginal article: https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/scarlett-johansson-legal-action-ai-app-ad-likeness-1235773489/ https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/scarlett-johansson-leg... From the guidelines [1]: > Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- andy_ppp 3y agoIf someone impersonates Scarlett Johansson or sounds a lot like her naturally is it illegal to make money from this? Why does AI have less rights than humans here?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nickthegreek 3y agoThe AI has zero rights. It is not a person, it is not sentient.
- dagmx 3y agoThat’s not the issue and the article clearly states it as well. The ad has this bit “What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me.” That strongly suggests endorsement. It wouldn’t matter if it was AI or Human, the ad is deceptive and uses someone’s likeness without rights to represent that person.
- simonw 3y agoIt also sounds like they used a clip from a Marvel movie in the ad, presumably without licensing it - I'm surprised Disney aren't involved in the lawsuit too.
- tyingq 3y agoIt's complicated. See articles, for example, on the "right of publicity": https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/right-of-publicity/ https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/right-of-publicity/ There's certainly precedent for where using a visual likeness ended up being a copyright violation.
- seandoe 3y ago> Why does AI have less rights than humans here? I'm not sure but this seems like an issue that shouldn't be taken for granted.
- chmod775 3y agoImpersonation can be illegal whether you're man, or man using a machine. > Why does AI have less rights than humans here? I'm sure that's not quite what you meant, because that question in itself is ridiculous. Obviously dumb bricks of plastic and silicon don't have rights.
- onion2k 3y agoThe difference, at least from my perspective as a viewer, is an advert that used someone impersonating a celebrity would need to be marked as such. If an advertiser used a celebrity impersonator in order to make people think the celebrity endorsed, or was at least willing to be associated with, the brand that would be grounds for the celebrity to sue, and for the advertising regulator to fine the brand. By recreating a voice in AI the company is effectively doing the same thing - associating that celebrity with their brand without permission. That's reasonable grounds for the celebrity to use the court system to say "That's not me, and I want to be paid for the damage this association may have caused to my status."
- skullone 3y agoWhy would a voice synthesizer and ad firm have any rights here? There's no "AI" here in the sense of some sentient being, are you stupid?
- implements 3y agoYou have to pay [1] the Hebrew University of Jerusalem when you use something that’s only a characterisation of Albert Einstein - I believe it’s considered part of his estate’s intellectual property. [1] https://einstein.biz/ https://einstein.biz/
- mcpackieh 3y ago1. "AI" doesn't have rights, let alone human rights. 2. The ad didn't feature images of a person that looked like her, it featured actual images of her that were manipulated to shill the product. This obviously isn't legal. You can't just cut out a picture of Tom Hanks and put him in your ad with a speech bubble saying "buy this product", what was done here is no different from that.
- debugnik 3y agoYou talk as if an AI was its own lifeform that just happened look like her. (AI rights at this stage, really?) But this is just a company blatantly using her image to promote an app, the AI is irrelevant: > The ad, reviewed by Variety, begins with an old clip of Johansson behind the scenes of Marvel’s “Black Widow.” Johansson says, “What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me…” before a graphic covers her mouth and the screen transitions into AI-generated photos that resemble the actor. A fake voice imitating Johansson then continues speaking, promoting the AI app.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoYes, humans can't do this either: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/when-tom-waits-sued-doritos/ https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/when-tom-waits-sued-doritos/
- pavon 3y agoWhether it is legal for a human depends on what they are doing. On one extreme impersonating as a parody is clearly legal protected speech, while as impersonating to trick people into thinking it is actually her is clearly illegal fraud. Then you have publicity rights that govern the use of ones likeness for commercial purposes, which apply to tools like this, and which have some clear cases and a whole ton of grey area. Judges generally don't care about internal details of the tech involved, instead focusing on the end result, ruling no different than if a human had done the same thing with different tools. The problems come when lawyers convince the judge into misunderstanding what that end result is using false analogies and incorrect explanation of the tech.
- JohnFen 3y ago> Why does AI have less rights than humans here? Because "AI" is not people. "AI" is not even conscious.
- andy_ppp 3y agoCompanies are not people either but have claimed all the same rights as us legally (and more). I'm unsure if AI should be able to do this hence the badly received question! I think everyone has their disgust triggered by the idea of AIs getting rights like humans but it's interesting to think about IMO.
- jjk166 3y agoYes it's illegal for a human to impersonate Scarlett Johansson to endorse a product for money. Why would AI have more rights than a human here?
- m3kw9 3y agoStraight up ads on Facebook with Elon musk face and voice saying he’s doing a new crypto project. It’s so illegal but is allowed to happen.
- jacquesm 3y agoThe real world version of 'Looker' isn't all that far away.
- JohnFen 3y agoWe seem to be barrelling straight into implementing most of the fictional dystopias that people have thought up.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoYou're broke and alone and the air is poison but at least the fake Scarlett Johanssons are cheap.
- hd4 3y agoWas that the recent Black mirror episode with Salma Hayek? That one was fantastic E: no it wasn't, I was thinking of "Joan is Awful"
- jacquesm 3y agohttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/
- at_a_remove 3y agoI really, really wish I had possessed the fortitude to finish the sci-fi novel I started writing a few decades ago. The backdrop was post Reality Crisis, which occurred after faking pretty much anything became simple and available to the masses. Huge waves of paranoia had overtaken distressingly large portions of the population, who managed to uncover actual conspiracies in their digging for what truth really was, swaths of people had been convicted on falsified evidence, major elections were overturned, and so on. Nobody knew what to believe any longer.
- jacquesm 3y agoOh that sounds interesting. But soon you'll be able to do the same thing by making a documentary... and likely it will be far wilder than your imagination ever foresaw.
- jmyeet 3y agoThis isn't really an AI issue. You can't use someone's likeness for commercial gain without their consent. This is well-established. It's true for actual footage. Being AI-generated changes nothing. You'll see the same thing in defamation cases. Someone will no doubt use AI to create someone's likeness to say something that person finds reprehensible and whoever created that AI may try to argue it's just an AI. It won't matter then either. Where this gets more interesting is if whoever created the AI gets held responsible for what people do with it. The kneejerk reaction in the tech community will be to say "no, it's just a tool" but there's such a thing in legal terms as a reckless disregard for the consequences making you culpable.
- pdonis 3y ago> there's such a thing in legal terms as a reckless disregard for the consequences Lots of tools can be dangerous if misused. We hold the people who misuse the tools responsible, not the people who made the tools. Why would AI be any different?
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoThat's not true in all situations, is it? If someone constructs something dangerous like an explosive and then hand it off for someone else's use they'd be culpable as well, wouldn't they?
- JohnFen 3y agoIt all depends. If I sell bottles of arsenic for the purpose of killing rats, I won't be held culpable if someone uses it for murder. If I sell bottles of arsenic for the purpose of murder, I would be.
- pdonis 3y ago> If someone constructs something dangerous like an explosive and then hand it off for someone else's use they'd be culpable as well, wouldn't they? As others have commented, it would depend on the person's intent. If an explosive making company sells some explosives to a construction company for use in excavation, but then the construction company misuses the explosive and kills people, the explosive making company wouldn't be liable. But if person A makes some homemade explosives and gives them to person B to put into a bomb, and the bomb kills people, yes, we would hold person A liable. But even in that case the basis wouldn't be "reckless disregard for consequences", it would just be straight up murder.
- zzzeek 3y ago> the 22-second ad showed Johansson behind the scenes while filming Black Widow, where she actually says “What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me.” But then, the ad transitions away from Johansson, while an AI-generated voice meant to sound like the actress states: “It’s not limited to avatars only. You can also create images with texts and even your AI videos. I think you shouldn’t miss it.” wow this is really amateur hour for whoever did that ad without permission. It's like this person never got a letter from their cable company for bittorrenting and just had no idea anyone would mind using major film studio actors/content in their for-profit ad without paying for it. it's like there's a reason when you go to the gym, all the music is some piped in re-recorded version of famous songs with an unknown singer doing it, rather than the actual music.
- londons_explore 3y ago> where she actually says “... It's the real clip that'll be the basis for this court case. Actual copyright infringement. The AI-generated portion is much more murky legal waters.
- tremon 3y agoThe AI-generated portion is much more murky legal waters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights 4) appropriation of name and likeness [..] violation of a right of publicity most closely aligns with appropriation. The right of publicity often is manifest in advertising or merchandise It specifically quotes a relevant part of California's civil code: Any person who knowingly uses another’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner, on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of, products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person’s prior consent [..] shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured as a result thereof.
- irrational 3y ago> it's like there's a reason when you go to the gym, all the music is some piped in re-recorded version of famous songs with an unknown singer doing it, rather than the actual music. Wait, is that a real thing? I’ve never heard of that before.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] More discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38105463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38105463
- dr-detroit 3y ago[dead]
- pfannkuchen 3y agoHaven’t seen too much discussion about how AI will democratize media production. Celebrity is a pretty significant form of inequality that weirdly spills over into things like political and social influence. If the phenomenon of media celebrity disappears, isn’t that a good thing?
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago“ EVERYONE will be Super! And when everyone is Super (chuckle) no one is.”
- TheBigSalad 3y agoWhy is AI going to cause celebrities to disappear?
- tansan 3y agoBrand dilution
- endisneigh 3y agoNonsensical. AI won’t stop the existence of popular individuals.
- bratbag 3y agoPersonalised entertainment where every element of it is generated specifically to your personal preferences, is going to make the scaling required for celebrity status for a mear human performer, quite challenging. It won't be too long before enough talented nobodies sell everything about themselves for personally life changing amounts, that we can create anything from scratch on the fly. But there will always be other types of celebrities.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoMedia celebrities exist because in order to produce entertainment content with convincingly human characters, you need to plug real humans into the image and sound replication machine. I imagine that it won’t be too long until you don’t need a real human anymore, and we can generate realistic human characters at will. At that point, why would we still plug real humans into the replication machine? It will be considered old fashioned very quickly.
- boringg 3y agoAmen - let's see more of this!
- acdanger 3y agoTom Waits sued Frito Lay for using his voice / musical stylings in ad: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/79648/when-tom-waits-sued-frito-lay-over-doritos-ad https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/79648/when-tom-waits-sue...
- thejackgoode 3y agoThat's a weird website
- dfxm12 3y agoThis is why you saw "Justin Guarini as Lil Sweet" briefly in those Dr. Pepper ads, lest they get on the wrong side of Prince's estate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1H_CaCR46M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1H_CaCR46M More recently, there was the Michelob Ultra commercial that had a ton of look (and a sound) alikes, but they basically one by one said "this isn't the person you thought it was". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCk9vfbnlfA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCk9vfbnlfA
- vasdae 3y agoRegarding Justin Guarini in that ad: is that really the best wig they had? It looks so plasticky...
- slater- 3y agoand ScarJo did a whole album of Tom Waits covers a few years ago. This is the next logical thing to do!
- xwdv 3y agoWe should be free to use celebrity voices for private purposes. I would love if I could replace Siri’s voice with Scarlett Johansson instead.
- mfer 3y agoWhy? Just because you would love to do something with it isn't a reason. What's a reason we should be able to do this?
- zamadatix 3y ago"Because I'd love to" is a great reason to to do something. The negation usually comes from the other negative impacts what you want to do has, not because it's inherently an invalid piece of justification.
- bratbag 3y agoIf there is zero difference to Johansson either way, and the use is purely private and never shared, then why is personal enjoyment insufficient justification?
- xwdv 3y agoUsually it is insufficient justification for those who want to profit off something people do freely for fun.
- JohnFen 3y ago> We should be free to use celebrity voices for private purposes. We are, in the US anyway. It's just when you distribute IP to others that things get dicey.
- manicennui 3y agoIf they choose to sell the rights.
- netcraft 3y agoAm I the only one who thinks that chat-gpt's voice chat sounds extremely similar to Scarlett in "her"?
- omginternets 3y agoTo me, these kinds of events support the idea that no AI-specific law is needed. AI is already illegal to use insofar as it's used to commit a crime, and it's already subject to tort law.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago*only if your pockets are deep enough to afford to sue the corporations who are misusing your likelihood without your consent Having something ratified as a law makes any lawsuit a slam dunk and discourages abuse even by wealthy corporations.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Having something ratified as a law makes any lawsuit a slam dunk No, it doesn't, otherwise there would be no lawsuits proceding to trial without settlement ubder established laws. Having law that (whether on its face or through case law) clearly applies to the situation that you claim occurred obviously helps, but it doesn't make any suit an automatic slam dunk.
- dgrin91 3y agoI think its too early to make that claim. Anyone can sue anyone else for pretty much anything. The question is will the case survive and have a reasonable chance of success? We might find out that this case dies in the first phases of proceedings because the law is not on Johansson's side.
- fragmede 3y agoWhy would you suppose that? Broadly, celebrity likeness is a recognized legal concept prior to the advent of AI, so why would sprinkling magic AI dust on the case change things? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
- foxyv 3y agoThis makes me wonder, what will AI mean for professional impersonators? Is this the end of Saturday Night Live? Or will satire be considered fair use? I have a feeling we will definitely need some new legislation in the next 10 years for regulating AI.
- adolph 3y ago> Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad (theverge.com) It is important to note that the legal action is against the company's use of her appearance rather than the capabilities of the app itself. However, I wonder if voice and appearance cloning capabilities are something that would be classified as unsafe by the regulations stemming from the "Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence"?
- game_the0ry 3y agoHighly interested to see the result of lawsuits like this. Technically, a person's image, even a famous person's, can be sourced from the public domain and that is enough to generate an AI avatar. Wonder how these AI celebrity clones will be regulated, if they are.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Highly interested to see the result of lawsuits like this. Technically, a person's image, even a famous person's, can be sourced from the public domain and that is enough to generate an AI avatar. Copyright status is irrelevant to right of personality/publicity claims, which is what this lawsuit is.
- polishdude20 3y agoHow does this work if you just find someone who sounds exactly like her do the ad? Do you then bring the new person into court to prove they sound like her and it's their real voice?
- Rygian 3y agoSame intent, similar result, so I'd expect same consequences.
- dave333 3y agoSounds like there is scope for a viral campaign where the actor is actually paid, but pretends not to be and threatens to sue etc. Maybe someone already did that?