zlacker

>>mjcl+(OP)
Well, this confirms that OpenAI have been shooting from the hip, not that we needed much confirmation. The fact that they repeatedly tried to hire Johansson, then went ahead and made a soundalike while explicitly describing that they were trying to make it be like her voice in the movie … is pretty bad for them.

>>aaronh+L1
It’s definitely sketchy (classic OpenAI) But my question is: is what they did actually illegal? Can someone copyright their own voice?

>>infota+84
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.)

>>crazyg+L6
Scarlet owns the voice of a stranger that happens to sound like her? That seems absurd.

Just find someone who sounds like her, then hire them for the rights to their voice.

>>howbad+Mh
It’s really hard to assume in good faith that you are unfamiliar with the concept of impersonation. Just in case: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impersonator

There is no doubt that the hired actor was an impersonator, this was explicitly stated by scama himself.

>>callal+bj
> There is no doubt that the hired actor was an impersonator, this was explicitly stated by scama himself.

And here's some caselaw where another major corporation got smacked down for doing the exact same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

But given how unscrupulous Sam Altman appears to be, I wouldn't be surprised if OpenAI hired an impersonator as some kind half-ass legal cover, and went about using Johansson's voice anyway. Tech people do stupid shut sometimes because they assume they're so much cleverer than everyone else.