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It's a neat demo. I don't know how I feed about cloning the voice of a living person, even a 'public' figure like a presenter. I wouldn't be surprised if it eve
by iris2004 3y ago
It's a neat demo. I don't know how I feed about cloning the voice of a living person, even a 'public' figure like a presenter. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually becomes illegal, although it'll likely be as difficult to enforce as normal casual copyright infringement.
- woleium 3y agoI expect the existing laws will be extended. I had a colleague tell me about looking into how much Morgan freeman wanted for a 15s commercial ($$$$$$). The alternative he used was a “sound alike” voice actor, for which Morgan Freeman received royalties to the tune of $$$$$.
- pcthrowaway 3y agoWhy would Morgan Freeman be entitled to royalties for a commercial where the voice over sounded similar to his voice... unless he actually sold the rights to represent him with a vocal likeness in the commercial (AKA he didn't do the voice over, but the commercial was able to claim the voice over was by Morgan Freemen, or that it represented Morgan Freeman's opinions... like when a book by a celebrity is actually written by someone else)
- frereubu 3y agoI don't get this either, and would be very interested in a clear explanation.
- galangalalgol 3y agoyeah at least in the US you are fine as long as you don't claim the voice is a certain person.
- 3np 3y agoGathering, retaining, using individual voice recordings for business purposes may be regulated, though. Already is in places, even if enforcement and precedence is lacking. So there'd be no legal way to produce or share the model generating such a voice or its output.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoYou can't use a Tom Waits (or Morgan Freeman) sound-a-like because you're profiting off their work and likeness. Unless the celeb sells a licensed sound-a-like. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/when-tom-waits-sued-doritos/ https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/when-tom-waits-sued-doritos/
- chankstein38 3y agoWhat if my voice sounded like Tom Waits or Morgan Freeman and I did commercials? It doesn't and I don't I'm just curious how this makes sense. Is it just if the voice is advertised to sound like him?
- stuckinhell 3y agoYes you would owe them money. This why I'm against artists trying to chokehold the AI.
- pcthrowaway 3y agoI don't think with the current copyright system you would owe another artist money when recording a commercial just because your voice happens to sound like theirs. But with AI perhaps it's "fair" (given the assumption that there's any fairness to copyright in the first place) to expect a creator to provide some kind of compensation to the source material that their AI was trained on. Case in point, this bot was clearly trained on David Attenborough samples, perhaps it can't be used commercially without purchasing some rights to the man's likeness.
- stuckinhell 3y agoPicasso is widely quoted as having said that “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” https://lifehacker.com/an-artist-explains-what-great-artists-steal-really-me-1818808264 https://lifehacker.com/an-artist-explains-what-great-artists...
- 3y ago
- vasco 3y agoRight of Publicity: https://higgslaw.com/celebrities-sue-over-unauthorized-use-of-identity/ https://higgslaw.com/celebrities-sue-over-unauthorized-use-o...
- airstrike 3y agoif my product doesn't imply or state that the voice is Morgan Freeman's, I don't think they really have a case? at least not based on common sense
- justinpombrio 3y agoIf the voice was chosen specifically to sound like Morgan Freeman, for the purpose of making listeners think it's Morgan Freeman when they hear it, it seems reasonable for it to run afoul of Morgan Freeman's right to publicity.
- airstrike 3y agoI owe nothing to Morgan Freeman just because I sound like him, unless I'm intentionally misleading listeners by advertising his name or implying as much
- ewi_ 3y agoIf they can reasonably argue that you're being hired because you sound like Morgan Freeman and you wouldn't get the job otherwise, then they likely have a case.
- airstrike 3y agoNot if "sound like Morgan Freeman" is a proxy for "have a nice-sounding voice". They could prefer people who sound like Morgan Freeman even if they are not representing to listeners that the voice is that of Morgan Freeman. Big distinction there.
- thrwy_918 3y ago
- bradley13 3y agoTell that to Einstein's family. Put an older guy with a German accent and wild white hair in a commercial, and they want paid. Honestly, it's offensive that they can "own" a general appearance. But their lawyers manage to enforce it.
- tantalor 3y agoI could understand if the actor was actually marketed as or publicly known a soundalike. But on the other hand, does "store brand lucky charms" have to pay a kick back to General Mills?
- happycube 3y agoIf it's on the shelf right next to the original, it was probably made by General Mills.
- onionisafruit 3y agoThat’s what my mother said. She was wrong.
- ciabattabread 3y ago> The alternative he used was a “sound alike” voice actor, for which Morgan Freeman received royalties to the tune of $$$$$. Was it Josh Robert Thompson, who is officially authorized? [1] [1] https://filmschoolrejects.com/morgan-freeman-crab-in-barb-and-star-go-to-vista-del-mar/ https://filmschoolrejects.com/morgan-freeman-crab-in-barb-an...
- WalterBright 3y agoI'd pay to stop hearing Morgan Freeman's voiceovers everywhere. It's way overplayed. At least do some James Earl Jones!
- antod 3y agoMy father had a friend who was a well recognised commercial voice over artist , and told me about his fees. There was a fee for doing the actual work, but a much bigger exclusivity/exposure fee designed to prevent his voice getting over used to the point where future work dried up.
- MrDresden 3y agoWhile I agree, I also did thoroughly enjoy a recent Youtube channel that did Warhammer 40K lore in Attenborough's voice. It recently got taken down for obvious reasons. Makes you wonder if in a few years there will be licenses available for using someone's voice for such endeavours.
- kkzz99 3y agoI have been creating audiobooks from ebooks for a while now. I just grab an .epub and turn it into a pretty good audiobook in minutes for completely free using local models.
- Tagbert 3y agoWhat do you use for the voice and the text to speech generator?
- Dig1t 3y agoYes please do share the models you are using
- thrwy_918 3y agoWhat's the state of the art in run-it-yourself TTS? I haven't seen anything that even comes close to what ElevenLabs is doing
- sigmar 3y agoI converted a book to audiobook a couple of months ago using the tts code here: https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS Wasn't as good as eleven labs, but it had enough options that I found a voice that I liked to listen to.
- CamperBob2 3y agoShouldn't be illegal, but I could understand it if we see laws that require explicit disclosure when voices of living people are simulated. At first glance that seems like the right compromise.
- anon_cow1111 3y agoThe extremely obvious legal problem is, ALL simulated voices sound like some real person somewhere, it's just a matter of finding that person. I don't see a solution to this, so I'll tend to believe the cynic's viewpoint that the final written law will be in favor of whoever has the most lawyers.
- fragmede 3y agoSure. The difference is some voices, like David Attenborough or Samuel Jackson are instantly recognizable to a large audience while someone who isn't famous' voice is not. Where to put the bar is a specific issue, but the exemplars in their category stand out as recognizable.
- jstarfish 3y ago> I don't see a solution to this It's actually simple. Take David Attenborough's name out of the picture. "A generic British guy is now narrating my life" isn't as funny as implicating a known celebrity, which is where the legal issues would arise. A generic British guy isn't going to sue you. Hell, you might even be able to get away with "A generic British guy who sounds like David Attenborough is now narrating my life."
- thrwy_918 3y ago>ALL simulated voices sound like some real person somewhere By the same logic, all simulated faces look like some real person somewhere, but I wouldn't expect to simulate a face that looks like Brad Pitt and then use it in a TV commercial
- jojobas 3y agoIf human vocal impersonation is legal (and they are damn convincing at times) so should be machine.
- olalonde 3y agoPersonally, I don't really see a problem with it as long as it's not used deceptively. In this case, it's pretty clear that it's not really David Attenborough speaking. Outside of that, I am not sure I'm seeing a moral or economic argument for making voice copyrightable. The usual argument about incentivizing creation doesn't apply here.
- tantalor 3y ago> pretty clear that it's not really David Attenborough speaking Not sure how you came to that conclusion. The bot mimics his speaking style very precisely.
- harpiaharpyja 3y agoI'm pretty sure he came to that conclusion using context.
- olalonde 3y agoIndeed.
- olalonde 3y agoFrom the tweet and video where he explains how he did it...
- RunSet 3y ago> I don't know how I feed about cloning the voice of a living person, I would like to hear it generate Kevin Conroy (R.I.P.) vocals for Christopher Nolan's Batman movies.
- samplatt 3y agoCloning the voice of a dead person, to me, feels even icky-er. Indigenous Australians would probably feel the same, too, considering they avoid contact with pictures or recordings of deceased people.
- thefourthchime 3y agoI've also cloned his voice, it's trivial. That said, it'll be interesting how the legal side of this shakes out. Does one own their likeness and voice? Who decides what that is? There are plenty of voice actors that can do a great Morgan Freedman or trump. How is that different?