6 ms·

It’s definitely sketchy (classic OpenAI) But my question is: is what they did actually illegal? Can someone copyright their own voice?

automatoney 2y ago
In the United States, likeness rights vary by state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
foota 2y ago
I think this will fall under what are termed personality rights, and the answer varies by state within the US.
duskwuff 2y ago
It's not precisely copyright, but most states recognize some form of personality rights, which encompass a person's voice just as much as the person's name or visual appearance.
- bhhaskin 2y ago
  But where it will get murky is people sound like other people. Most voices are hardly unique. It will be interesting to see where this lands.
  - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
    It isn't murky, because law is about intent more than result. It doesn't matter if they hired someone who sounds like Scarlett, it matters if they intended to do so. If they accidentally hired someone who sounds identical, that's not illegal. But if they intended to, even if it is a pretty poor imitation, it would be illegal because the intent to do it was there. A court of law would be looking for things like emails about what sort of actress they were looking for, how they described that requirement, how they evaluated the candidate and selected her, and of course, how the CEO announced it alongside a movie title Scarlett starred in.
    - howbadisthat 2y ago
      Under what legal theory is intending to do something which is legal (hiring a person that has a voice you want) becomes illegal because there is another person who has a similar voice?
      - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
        It's not intending to do something legal, it's intending to do something illegal: Stealing their likeness. The fact you used an otherwise legal procedure to do the illegal activity doesn't make it less illegal.
        howbadisthat 2y ago
        How can something be illegal if every step towards the objective is legal? This would result in an incoherent legal system where selective prosecution/corruption is trivial.
        ocdtrekkie 2y ago
        It is legal to buy a gun, and legal to fire a gun, and it can even be legal to fire a gun at someone who is threatening to kill you in the moment, but if you fire a gun at someone with the intention of killing someone that happens to be very, very illegal.
        howbadisthat 2y ago
        Very well. But in this case the end goal is the end of someone's unique life. In the case of acquiring a likeness, if it's done legally you acquire someone else's likeness that happens to be shared with your target. The likeness is shared and non-unique. If you objective is to take someone's life, there is no other pathway to the objective but their life. With likeness that isn't the case.
        kelnos 2y ago
  - tivert 2y ago
    > But where it will get murky is people sound like other people. Most voices are hardly unique. It will be interesting to see where this lands. Yes, it will be interesting in June 1988 when we will find out "where this lands": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
emmp 2y ago
There are two similar famous cases I know offhand. Probably there are more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co. Bette Middler successfully sued Ford for impersonating her likeness in a commercial. Then also: https://casetext.com/case/waits-v-frito-lay-inc https://casetext.com/case/waits-v-frito-lay-inc Tom Waits successfully sued Frito Lay for using an imitator without approval in a radio commercial. The key seems to be that if someone is famous and their voice is distinctly attributeable to them, there is a case. In both of these cases, the artists in question were also solicited first and refused.
- npunt 2y ago
  Also Crispin Glover's case in Back to the Future II https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/back-future-ii-a-legal-833705/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/bac...
- dralley 2y ago
  What if the imitator is clearly an imitator? e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvF0l8RUGQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvF0l8RUGQ8
  - gcanyon 2y ago
    That's weird -- I would think Morgan Freeman would be able to sue over that, but I Am Not An Intellectual Property Lawyer.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      I feel like that's a little different. In the cases of Midler, Waits, and Johansson, the companies involved wanted to use their voices, were turned down, and then went with an imitator to make it seem to the audience that the celebrity was actually performing. In the case of this "Morgan Freeman" video, Freeman himself is very obviously not performing: the imitator appears on screen, so it's explicitly acknowledged in the ad. But I'm not a lawyer of any sort either, so... ::shrug::
aaronharnly 2y ago
I’m not a lawyer and don’t have any deep background this area of IP, but there is at least some precedent apparently: > In a novel case of voice theft, a Los Angeles federal court jury Tuesday awarded gravel-throated recording artist Tom Waits $2.475 million in damages from Frito-Lay Inc. and its advertising agency. > The U.S. District Court jury found that the corn chip giant unlawfully appropriated Waits’ distinctive voice, tarring his reputation by employing an impersonator to record a radio ad for a new brand of spicy Doritos corn chips. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...
crazygringo 2y ago
Yes, absolutely illegal. You don't need to copyright anything, you simply own the rights your own likeness -- your visual appearance and your voice. A company can't take a photo from your Facebook and plaster it across an advertisement for their product without you giving them the rights to do that. And if you're a known public figure, this includes lookalikes and soundalikes as well. You can't hire a ScarJo impersonator that people will think is ScarJo. This is clearly a ScarJo soundalike. It doesn't matter whether it's an AI voice or clone or if they hired someone to sound just like her. Because she's a known public figure, that's illegal if she hasn't given them the rights. (However, if you generate a synthetic voice that just happens to sound exactly like a random Joe Schmo, it's allowed because Joe Schmo isn't a public figure, so there's no value in the association.)
- zooq_ai 2y ago
  But is that Scarlett Jo or Producers of Her that own the copyright? If you imitate Darth Vader, I don't think James Earl Jones has as much case for likeliness as Star Wars franchise
  - ceruleanseas 2y ago
    James Earl Jones sold his voice rights to Disney a couple of years ago, so they can continue to use an AI likeness of his voice for future movies. https://ambadar.com/insights/james-earl-jones-signs-off-his-voice-what-are-image-rights/# https://ambadar.com/insights/james-earl-jones-signs-off-his-...
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    It's both. If you just want ScarJo's (or James Earl Jones') voice, you need the rights from them. Period. If you want to reuse the character of her AI bot from the movie (her name, overall personality, tone, rhythm, catchphrases, etc.), or the character of Darth Vader, you also need to license that from the producers. And also from ScarJo/Jones if you want the same voice to accompany the character. (Unless they've sold all rights for future re-use to the producers, which won't usually be the case, because they want to be paid for sequels.)
  - deleted 2y ago
kcplate 2y ago
The problem is they pursued, was rejected, then approximated. Had they just approximated and made no references to the movie…then I bet social marketing would have made the connection organically and neither Ms Johansson or the Her producers would have much ground because they could reasonably claim that it was just a relatively generic woman’s voice with a faint NY/NJ accent.
simonsarris 2y ago
This is known as personality rights or right to publicity. Impersonating someone famous (eg faking their likeness or voice for an ad) is often illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
bl4kers 2y ago
Not here to weigh in on the answers to these questions. But it certainly feels pretty scary to have to ask such questions about a company leading the LLM space, considering the U.S. currently has little to no legal infrastructure to reign in these companies. Plus the tone of the voice is likely an unimportant detail to theor success. So pushing up against the legal boundaries in this specific domain is at best strange and at worst a huge red flag for their ethics and how they operate.

automatoney 2y ago

In the United States, likeness rights vary by state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

foota 2y ago

I think this will fall under what are termed personality rights, and the answer varies by state within the US.

duskwuff 2y ago

It's not precisely copyright, but most states recognize some form of personality rights, which encompass a person's voice just as much as the person's name or visual appearance.

bhhaskin 2y ago
But where it will get murky is people sound like other people. Most voices are hardly unique. It will be interesting to see where this lands.
- ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  It isn't murky, because law is about intent more than result. It doesn't matter if they hired someone who sounds like Scarlett, it matters if they intended to do so. If they accidentally hired someone who sounds identical, that's not illegal. But if they intended to, even if it is a pretty poor imitation, it would be illegal because the intent to do it was there. A court of law would be looking for things like emails about what sort of actress they were looking for, how they described that requirement, how they evaluated the candidate and selected her, and of course, how the CEO announced it alongside a movie title Scarlett starred in.
  - howbadisthat 2y ago
    Under what legal theory is intending to do something which is legal (hiring a person that has a voice you want) becomes illegal because there is another person who has a similar voice?
    - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
      It's not intending to do something legal, it's intending to do something illegal: Stealing their likeness. The fact you used an otherwise legal procedure to do the illegal activity doesn't make it less illegal.
      - howbadisthat 2y ago
        How can something be illegal if every step towards the objective is legal? This would result in an incoherent legal system where selective prosecution/corruption is trivial.
        ocdtrekkie 2y ago
        It is legal to buy a gun, and legal to fire a gun, and it can even be legal to fire a gun at someone who is threatening to kill you in the moment, but if you fire a gun at someone with the intention of killing someone that happens to be very, very illegal.
        howbadisthat 2y ago
        Very well. But in this case the end goal is the end of someone's unique life. In the case of acquiring a likeness, if it's done legally you acquire someone else's likeness that happens to be shared with your target. The likeness is shared and non-unique. If you objective is to take someone's life, there is no other pathway to the objective but their life. With likeness that isn't the case.
        kelnos 2y ago
- tivert 2y ago
  > But where it will get murky is people sound like other people. Most voices are hardly unique. It will be interesting to see where this lands. Yes, it will be interesting in June 1988 when we will find out "where this lands": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

emmp 2y ago

There are two similar famous cases I know offhand. Probably there are more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co. Bette Middler successfully sued Ford for impersonating her likeness in a commercial. Then also: https://casetext.com/case/waits-v-frito-lay-inc https://casetext.com/case/waits-v-frito-lay-inc Tom Waits successfully sued Frito Lay for using an imitator without approval in a radio commercial. The key seems to be that if someone is famous and their voice is distinctly attributeable to them, there is a case. In both of these cases, the artists in question were also solicited first and refused.

npunt 2y ago
Also Crispin Glover's case in Back to the Future II https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/back-future-ii-a-legal-833705/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/bac...
dralley 2y ago
What if the imitator is clearly an imitator? e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvF0l8RUGQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvF0l8RUGQ8
- gcanyon 2y ago
  That's weird -- I would think Morgan Freeman would be able to sue over that, but I Am Not An Intellectual Property Lawyer.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I feel like that's a little different. In the cases of Midler, Waits, and Johansson, the companies involved wanted to use their voices, were turned down, and then went with an imitator to make it seem to the audience that the celebrity was actually performing. In the case of this "Morgan Freeman" video, Freeman himself is very obviously not performing: the imitator appears on screen, so it's explicitly acknowledged in the ad. But I'm not a lawyer of any sort either, so... ::shrug::

aaronharnly 2y ago

I’m not a lawyer and don’t have any deep background this area of IP, but there is at least some precedent apparently: > In a novel case of voice theft, a Los Angeles federal court jury Tuesday awarded gravel-throated recording artist Tom Waits $2.475 million in damages from Frito-Lay Inc. and its advertising agency. > The U.S. District Court jury found that the corn chip giant unlawfully appropriated Waits’ distinctive voice, tarring his reputation by employing an impersonator to record a radio ad for a new brand of spicy Doritos corn chips. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...

crazygringo 2y ago

Yes, absolutely illegal. You don't need to copyright anything, you simply own the rights your own likeness -- your visual appearance and your voice. A company can't take a photo from your Facebook and plaster it across an advertisement for their product without you giving them the rights to do that. And if you're a known public figure, this includes lookalikes and soundalikes as well. You can't hire a ScarJo impersonator that people will think is ScarJo. This is clearly a ScarJo soundalike. It doesn't matter whether it's an AI voice or clone or if they hired someone to sound just like her. Because she's a known public figure, that's illegal if she hasn't given them the rights. (However, if you generate a synthetic voice that just happens to sound exactly like a random Joe Schmo, it's allowed because Joe Schmo isn't a public figure, so there's no value in the association.)

zooq_ai 2y ago
But is that Scarlett Jo or Producers of Her that own the copyright? If you imitate Darth Vader, I don't think James Earl Jones has as much case for likeliness as Star Wars franchise
- ceruleanseas 2y ago
  James Earl Jones sold his voice rights to Disney a couple of years ago, so they can continue to use an AI likeness of his voice for future movies. https://ambadar.com/insights/james-earl-jones-signs-off-his-voice-what-are-image-rights/# https://ambadar.com/insights/james-earl-jones-signs-off-his-...
- crazygringo 2y ago
  It's both. If you just want ScarJo's (or James Earl Jones') voice, you need the rights from them. Period. If you want to reuse the character of her AI bot from the movie (her name, overall personality, tone, rhythm, catchphrases, etc.), or the character of Darth Vader, you also need to license that from the producers. And also from ScarJo/Jones if you want the same voice to accompany the character. (Unless they've sold all rights for future re-use to the producers, which won't usually be the case, because they want to be paid for sequels.)
- deleted 2y ago

kcplate 2y ago

The problem is they pursued, was rejected, then approximated. Had they just approximated and made no references to the movie…then I bet social marketing would have made the connection organically and neither Ms Johansson or the Her producers would have much ground because they could reasonably claim that it was just a relatively generic woman’s voice with a faint NY/NJ accent.

simonsarris 2y ago

This is known as personality rights or right to publicity. Impersonating someone famous (eg faking their likeness or voice for an ad) is often illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

bl4kers 2y ago

Not here to weigh in on the answers to these questions. But it certainly feels pretty scary to have to ask such questions about a company leading the LLM space, considering the U.S. currently has little to no legal infrastructure to reign in these companies. Plus the tone of the voice is likely an unimportant detail to theor success. So pushing up against the legal boundaries in this specific domain is at best strange and at worst a huge red flag for their ethics and how they operate.