OpenAI's mistake was caving to SJ. They should have kept Sky and told SJ to get lost. If SJ sued, they could simply prove another voice actor was used and make the legitimate argument that SJ doesn't have a monopoly on voices similar to hers.
2. Ford explicitly hired an impersonator. OpenAI hired someone that sounded like her, and it’s her natural voice. Should movies be held to the same standard when casting their actors? This is about as absurd as saying that you’re not allowed to hire an actor to play a role.
Waits v. Frito Lay, Inc was '92, and cited it. They used a Tom Waits-sounding voice on an original song, and Waits successfully sued:
> Discussing the right of publicity, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the jury’s verdict that the defendants had committed the “Midler tort” by misappropriating Tom Waits’ voice for commercial purposes. The Midler tort is a species of violation of the right of publicity that protects against the unauthorized imitation of a celibrity’s voice which is distinctive and widely known, for commercial purposes.
https://tiplj.org/wp-content/uploads/Volumes/v1/v1p109.pdf
Of course, who knows what a court will find at the end of this. There is precedent, however.
That’s annoying, but we live in a country with lots of annoying laws that we nonetheless abide by. In this case I guess OpenAI just didn’t want to risk losing a court battle.
I still think legal = moral is mistaken in general, and from a moral standpoint it’s bogus that OpenAI couldn’t replicate the movie Her. It would’ve been cool. But, people can feel however they want to feel about it, and my personal opinion is worth about two milkshakes. But it’s still strange to me that anyone has a problem with what they did.