When discovery happens and there’s a trail of messages suggesting either getting ScarJo or finding someone that sounds enough like her this isn’t going to look good with all the other events in timeline.
If it goes to court, they’ll settle.
I'm not a lawyer, but this seems unfair to the voice actor they did use, and paid, who happens to sound like ScarJo (or vice versa!)
So if I sound like a famous person, then I cant monetize my own voice? Who's to say it isnt the other way around, perhaps it is ScarJo that sounds like me and i'm owed money?
The problem here is that someone inside of OpenAI wanted to create a marketing buzz around a new product launch and capitalize on a movie. In order to do that they wanted a voice that sounded like that movie. They hired a voice actor that sounded enough like ScarJo to hedge against actually getting the actor to do it. When she declined they decided to implement their contingency plan.
If they're liable is for a jury to decide, but the case precedent that I've seen, along with the intent, wouldn't look good if I were on that jury.
> Who's to say it isnt the other way around, perhaps it is ScarJo that sounds like me and i'm owed money?
It seems like you don't get the fundamental principal underlying "right of publicity" laws if you are asking this question.
Seems she is prevented from doing work, if companies can get sued for hiring/using voice actors who sounds like ScarJo, then any voice actor who sounds like ScarJo has effectively been de-platformed. Similarly, imagine I look very much like George Clooney -- if George Clooney can sue magazines for featuring my handsome photos, then I lose all ability to model for pay. (Strictly hypothetical, I am a developer, not a fashion model.)
>> It seems like you don't get the fundamental principal underlying "right of publicity" laws if you are asking this question.
Totally, i have no idea of the laws here, but very curious to understand what OpenAI did wrong here.
If her customers can get sued for using her voice, then this voice actor can never get another job and can never get paid again -- all because she happens to sound like ScarJo. That seems unfair to the voice actor.
>Totally, i have no idea of the laws here, but very curious to understand what OpenAI did wrong here.
It is illegal to profit off the likeness of others. If it wasn't, what's to stop any company from hiring any impersonator to promote that company as the person they are impersonating?
If you had a voice like Scarlett, and you were hired to create the voice of an AI assistant, there's no legal problem - as long as the voice isn't marketed using references to Scarlett.
However, in this case, the voice is similar to Scarlett's, AND they referenced a popular movie where Scarlett voiced an AI assistant, and named the assistant in a way that is evocative of Scarlett's name, and reached out to Scarlett wanting to use her voice. It is those factors that make it legally questionable, as it appears that they knowingly capitalized on the voice's similarity to Scarlett's without her permission.
It is about intent, and how the voice is marketed. Voice sounds like a famous person = fine, voice sounds like a famous person and the voice is marketed as being similar to the famous person's = not fine.
It is not a clear-cut 'this is definitely illegal' in this case, it is a grey area that a court would have to decide on.