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With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

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Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

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Bette Midler sued ford back in the day (1988) for hiring an impersonator to sing on an ad and won. (Of course it helped that Ford asked her to sing first) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co . "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 expres…

> 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 So it's illegal to imitate a famous person, but not a regular Joe? We certainly are all equal, except those who are more equal of course.

I would read it as: if you make a living with your unique voice, imitation to make profit is unlawful.

The fact that they're famous is really just a tautology. Voices that make money are generally more famous than ones nobody recognizes.

Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

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Bette Midler sued ford back in the day (1988) for hiring an impersonator to sing on an ad and won. (Of course it helped that Ford asked her to sing first) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co . "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 expres…

Then how are Elvis impersonators not a copyright violation?

They might be, but they're so small-time that it's not worth pursuing.

If an Elvis impersonator started to become famous or successful and popular, you can bet the EP estate would be in touch.

Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

#13
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Isn't parodies are explicitly excluded from requiring to hold copyright to an object of a parody?

Yes but with complexities in general, and a collision with non-copyright issues for deep fakes that starts to get into more unexplored societal/legal territory. First, parody is part of Fair Use, which means that it's an "affirmative defense": in a lawsuit, the burden is on the defendant to bring it up and prove it. That's in contrast to ordinary defenses or arguments around the facts asserted by the plaintiff, where it's up to the plaintiff to prove them to whatever the required standard of evidence is. In practice, that can mean a somewhat higher financial risk and higher chance of losing at the edges.

Second though, parody (and Fair Use) is about copyright and trademark, protecting use of such material for commentary and so on. But use of someone's likeness directly, particularly for someone famous, in order to produce new works is arguably something new that hasn't really been dealt with yet. Jay-Z making a copyright claim definitely seems dubious, and perhaps was done simply for convenience rather then legal strength, copyright disputes are the form in which most take down systems work. I can see arguments both ways for whether copyright would apply at all: in favor, the argument would be that the ML models are being trained via copyrighted works, which in turn makes them derivatives. On the other hand, facts are not copyrightable (in the USA) regardless of effort or source. A counter argument would be that the ML models are merely deriving facts about a person's vocal cord, facial structures and other physical natural characteristics, which then create a factual physical model which can be utilized to produce new works. In that case, all these new deep fakes would be their own brand new copyright (and potentially the ML models themselves not copyrightable). That'd be an interesting legal argument to see hashed out.

But even if they're new copyrights, right to voice & likeness are issues in some jurisdictions and certainly could be argued should be more so as technology makes this easier. I think factors around threat to reputation and so on also are raised in new ways with deep fakes vs remixing and adding commentary to real, existing works (which can in turn be referenced by anyone who sees the parody). Even if there is a disclaimer on the original deep fake, as a de novo work which itself might get spread around without context it's at least different then what we've had until now.

Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

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Bette Midler sued ford back in the day (1988) for hiring an impersonator to sing on an ad and won. (Of course it helped that Ford asked her to sing first) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co . "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 expres…

Then how are Elvis impersonators not a copyright violation?

Or cover bands, for that matter.

Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

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post #8
post #5

Bette Midler sued ford back in the day (1988) for hiring an impersonator to sing on an ad and won. (Of course it helped that Ford asked her to sing first) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co . "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 expres…

Very important to note that the Midler case has very narrow interpretation. From the Opinion: > We need not and do not go so far as to hold that every imitation of a voice to advertise merchandise is actionable. We hold only that when a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs and have committed…

Videos on YouTube are selling advertisements so wouldn't this apply here?

Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

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Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a little tricky.. Even Weird Al gets the original artist's permission. "(Technically, a parodist does not need permission, but it is a legal gray area, and Weird Al prefers to have every artist in on the joke.)" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/magazine/weird-al-yankovi... edit: the tricky pit is defining parody.

> Its a little tricky.. Even Weird Al gets the original artist's permission. Weird Al's preferences don't add any strength [evidence] to any argument regarding the legality.

Weird Al is trying to save himself trouble, because going to court can be expensive even when you win. He can legally do parodies without consent, but since so many people are happy to give him permission, that's the easier route for him.

Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

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Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its a little tricky.. Even Weird Al gets the original artist's permission. Weird Al's preferences don't add any strength [evidence] to any argument regarding the legality.

Weird Al is trying to save himself trouble, because going to court can be expensive even when you win. He can legally do parodies without consent, but since so many people are happy to give him permission, that's the easier route for him.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_Pitiful

> While Blunt himself had no issues with Yankovic recording the parody, Blunt's record label Atlantic did; they forbade Yankovic from commercially releasing the song at the last minute. Yankovic eventually released the song online as a veritable free single; furthermore, in music videos and during live performances, Yankovic has made reference to his dispute with Atlantic. Since the initial debacle in 2006, Yankovic has occasionally reached out to Blunt and his label to see if he can release the song on compilations. However, each time that he has approached Atlantic Records, he has been denied permission.

Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

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post #5

Bette Midler sued ford back in the day (1988) for hiring an impersonator to sing on an ad and won. (Of course it helped that Ford asked her to sing first) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co . "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 expres…

In 2015 I had an unusual solicitation from a recruiter on LinkedIn - as a lawyer this in my experience is a rarity unlike tech where I understand it to be common place - with interest in offering me a General Counsel position with Romero Britto's Company.

Turns out Apple engaged in discussions to license (or maybe commissioning) Britto's Art, but then Apple turned around and essentially just "knocked off" of Britto's style. They were looking to bring me in to file and handle lawsuit for copyright infringement...I declined the offer and they filed suit (I believe it ended up with a settlement).

It is easy to have strong opinions one way or another about copyright laws, but feelings of law aside, my opinion was that it was in very poor taste for a company like Apple to court an Artist like Britto and then big time him the way they did...sure art and artistic styles are a dime a dozen, but they could have used any art for their campaign, they didn't have to mimic/copy his style (I can't fathom what would even make them do that...ego I suppose). For those who are curious here is a link to an article that shows Apple's alleged infringing art:

https://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/visual-arts/articl...

Re: With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube

#20
Lots of examples of their synthesis here: https://lbry.tv/@VocalSynthesis:2?page=1 .

I've been thinking about the deepfakes as a kind of computational thinking aid. We can all simulate reading text from the voice of random celebrities in our mind's eye. How different is the ability to bring that imagination into reality?

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