It seems she has every reason to benefit from claiming Sky sounded like her even if it was a coincidence. "Go away" payments are very common, even for celebrities - and OpenAI has deep pockets...
Even so, if they got a voice actor to impersonate or sound similar to Johansson, is that something that's not allowed?
As for your second question, yes. Otherwise you have a perfect workaround that would mean a person likeness is free-for-all to use, but we already decided that is not acceptable.
Correct, that is not allowed in the US.
She doesn't need "go away" payments, and in any case that is not what we're looking at here. OpenAI offered her money to take the part, and she said no.
According to celebrity net worth website, SJ is worth $165M.
> She doesn't need "go away" payments
> According to celebrity net worth website, SJ is worth $165M.
I have no idea what Johansson's estimated net worth, or her acting career have to do with this? Wealthy people sue all the time for all kinds of ridiculous things.
The voice is, in fact, not Johansson. Yet, it appears she will be suing them non-the-less...
It's not illegal to sound like someone else - despite what people might be claiming. If it turns out to be true that Sky's voice actor was recorded prior to the attempted engagement with Johansson, then all of this is extra absurd.
Also, Sky doesn't sound like Johansson anyway... but apparently that isn't going to matter in this situation.
That is not decided. There have been high profile cases were someone's likeness was explicitly used without permission, and they still had no recourse. It was argued the person was notable enough they could not protect their likeness.
Regardless, it appears debated if Sky even sounded like Johansson, which will make this very difficult for anyone to argue (being subjective and all). If the Sky voice actor was recorded prior to engaging with Johansson (which has been claimed by OpenAI), then it seems even more difficult to argue.
In the end, this will net Johansson a nice "go away" payday and then everyone will forget about it.
> The appellate court ruled that the voice of someone famous as a singer is distinctive to their person and image and therefore, as a part of their identity, it is unlawful to imitate their voice without express consent and approval. The appellate court reversed the district court's decision and ruled in favor of Midler, indicating her voice was protected against unauthorized use.