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
There are two similar famous cases I know offhand. Probably there are more.

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

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.

>>emmp+Z5
What if the imitator is clearly an imitator? e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvF0l8RUGQ8

>>dralle+2f
That's weird -- I would think Morgan Freeman would be able to sue over that, but I Am Not An Intellectual Property Lawyer.

>>gcanyo+zi
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::