this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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I mean, that's just how it has always worked, this isn't actually special to AI.
Tom Hanks does the voice for Woody in Toy Story movies, but, his brother Jim Hanks has a very similar voice, but since he isnt Tom Hanks he commands a lower salary.
So many video games and whatnot use Jim's voice for Woody instead to save a bunch of money, and/or because Tom is typically busy filming movies.
This isn't an abnormal situation, voice actors constantly have "sound alikes" that impersonate them and get paid literally because they sound similar.
OpenAI clearly did this.
It's hilarious because normally fans are foaming at the mouth if a studio hires a new actor and they sound even a little bit different than the prior actor, and no one bats an eye at studios efforts to try really hard to find a new actor that sounds as close as possible.
Scarlett declined the offer and now she's malding that OpenAI went and found some other woman who sounds similar.
Thems the breaks, that's an incredibly common thing that happens in voice acting across the board in video games, tv shows, movies, you name it.
OpenAI almost certainly would have won the court case if they were able to produce who they actually hired and said person could demo that their voice sounds the same as Gippity's.
If they did that, Scarlett wouldn't have a leg to stand on in court, she cant sue someone for having a similar voice to her, lol.
She sure can't. Sounds like all OpenAI has to do is produce the voice actor they used.
So where is she? ...
Right.
Get real. They have made it like her deliberately. Not anybody "nearly alike". They even admitted it.
That was the point... Did you reply to the wrong comment?
Government administrations wanting to know the ingredients of how something is made isn’t exactly new.
That's flattering, but I was actually just expecting a press release. So where is it?
Yes but also no, the whole appeal is tied to her brand (her public image x the character HER), unlike Woody who is an original creation.
It's like doing a commercial using a lookalike dressed like the original guy and pretending that's a completely different actor.
I agreed with op, then i read your astute response and now I don't know which position is correct.
Thinking it through as i type... If you photoshopped an image of Tom Hanks giving a thumbs up to your product, that would clearly be illegal, but if you hired an exact flawless lookalike impersonator of Tom Hanks and had him pose for a picture with a thumbs up to your product, would that be illegal? I think it might still be illegal, because you purposely hired a lookalike impersonator to gain the benefit of Tom Hanks' brand.
I think the law on AI should match what the law says about impersonators. If hiring an indistinguishable celebrity impersonator to use in media is legal, then ai soundalikes should be legal too, and vice versa.
when you get into these nitty gritty copyright/ip arguments you realize it's all just a house of cards to make capital king and the main ism
I think what it comes down to is intention. Are you intending to mimic someone else's likeness without that person's permission? That's wrong. But if you just like someone's voice and want to use them, and they happen to have a similar likeness, that's fine.
Where OpenAI gloriously fucked up is asking Johansson first. If they hadn't, they would have plausible deniability that they just liked the voice actor's voice. If it reminds them of Johansson, that's even fine. What's wrong is that they specifically wanted her likeness, even after she turned them down.
I get that she is grappling with identity and it's not a clear cut case, but if the precedent is set that similar voices (and I didn't even think it was that similar in this case) are infringement, that would be a pretty big blow to commercial creativity projects.
Maybe it's more a brand problem than an infringement problem.
That reminded me of Ice Ice Baby and the rip-off of Queen's Under Pressure bass riff. Queen won i think.
I don't think this is the same thing though. They asked her, she said so, they went for her cute cousin instead... typical.
The difference is that apparently they asked ScarJo first and she said no. When they ask Tom Hanks (or really his agent, I assume) the answer is "he's too busy with movies, try Jim".
You think celebrities need to consent to someone that sounds similar to them getting work? That's insane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
Having a talking woman in your phone is not stealing Scarlet Johansson's likeness, even if they sound somewhat similar. US copyright law is already ridiculous, and you want to make it even more bullshit?
By that logic her role in Her was already stealing the voice actor for Siri's likeness, and she should have sued for that too.
If you don't own your image what do you own?
Also you know scale. There is a difference between an Elvis impersonation in Vegas vs a huge ass corporation.
You own the pile of money you earned for the role you played in someone else's creative project.
This isn't back to the future 2 making a Crispin Glover face mask and putting it on an extra, its using a woman for a voice acting role for an AI speaking from your phone, and somehow that's stealing from a movie with the same concept, but not stealing from the actual phone AIs voiced by women that existed before the movie.
How would you feel if I made wheelbarrows of money off your face or voice without your consent and not paying you a penny? What about your family, got a relatives you care about who would look great in my AI generated porno?
The world is schizophrenic about this. On one hand we know that data is king and knowing about a person and having access to what they produce is a super important very lucrative field. The biggest companies on earth buy and sell data about people. On the other hand we argue that your image and data has no value and anyone can do what they want with it.
Then I'd have grounds to sue you for stealing my likeness, just like Crispin Glover did in the example I just gave.
Are you under the impression that's what happened here? It isn't. The voice is clearly not Scarlet Johansson's, and she doesn't have any kind of ownership over the concept of an AI in your phone using an upbeat woman's voice to speak to you.
Well, in the "soundalike" situation you describe people were getting paid to voice things. Now it's just an AI model that's not getting paid and the people that made the model probably got paid even less than a soundalike voice actor would. It's just more money going to the top.
Scarlett actually would have a good case if she can show the court that people think it’s her. Tom Waits won a case against Frito Lay for “voice misappropriation” when they had someone imitate his voice for a commercial.
Wouldn’t the difference here wrt Tom/Woody be that Tom had already played the role before so there is some expectation that a similar voice would be used for future versions of Woody if Tom wasn’t available?
Serious question, I never thought about the point you made so now I’m curious.
I wish I had enough bandwidth to be angry at a new voice actor being hired to play in a children's movie franchise.