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[return to "OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show"]
1. omnico+v11[view] [source] 2024-05-23 08:18:24
>>richar+(OP)
Comments full of people reading the headline and assuming that what OpenAI did here is fine because it's a different actress, but that's not how "Right of publicity" (*) laws work. The article itself explains that there is significant legal risk here:

> Mitch Glazier, the chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, said that Johansson may have a strong case against OpenAI if she brings forth a lawsuit.

> He compared Johansson’s case to one brought by the singer Bette Midler against the Ford Motor Co. in the 1980s. Ford asked Midler to use her voice in ads. After she declined, Ford hired an impersonator. A U.S. appellate court ruled in Midler’s favor, indicating her voice was protected against unauthorized use.

> But Mark Humphrey, a partner and intellectual property lawyer at Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp, said any potential jury probably would have to assess whether Sky’s voice is identifiable as Johansson.

> Several factors go against OpenAI, he said, namely Altman’s tweet and his outreach to Johansson in September and May. “It just begs the question: It’s like, if you use a different person, there was no intent for it to sound like Scarlett Johansson. Why are you reaching out to her two days before?” he said. “That would have to be explained.”

* A.K.A. "Personality rights": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

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2. scoot+N31[view] [source] 2024-05-23 08:37:45
>>omnico+v11
They contacted Johansson after the Sky voice was created, they didn’t create it because she declined.

The voice actor isn’t a Johansson imitator, and the voice isn’t an imitation.

The only similarity between the Sky voice and Johansson’s is that it’s a white American female, so by your logic a significant percentage of the US population has a case.

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3. huxley+Fh1[view] [source] 2024-05-23 10:38:57
>>scoot+N31
Hmmm. This isn’t voice acting though. I suspect that we’ll find that OpenAI used thousands of Johansson’s voice samples for general training to give the voice a “Her” feel and then found someone with a similar voice for fine tuning but had Johansson said yes, they could then have had her do it instead.

If the records show that they did train Sky with Johansson’s voice samples it will be an interesting case.

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