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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

#161

Post by gjs278 »

areoform wrote: post #57
kauffj wrote: post #51

CEO of LBRY here. These videos are welcome on LBRY. We'll have to get a real (i.e. not me commenting on HN) legal opinion should we get a take down request, but prima facie I don't see why these would be illegal. (If they are illegal and we are notified, we would put them on the company maintained blacklist, as we cannot remove anything from the network itself.) Edit: I wrote a rap on our perspective. If you're havin…

While I appreciate your hustle here, it might not be such a good idea to become the hub for deepfakes and the endless lawsuits they will invite. The deep ethical issues involved should make anyone pause, but taking on record companies and artists should make you pause further. Everyone loves Napster as a history lesson. But it is doubtful that anyone would want to live it. Your position seems to be inviting all of th…

it's called the 1st amendment. the payoff would be we get actual freedom while wienies like you wring their hands about it.

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

#162

Post by flukus »

andy_ppp wrote: post #125
tathougies wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I genuinely wonder if deepfake technology will actually result in new copyright restriction law. I.e. to make it a crime to produce unlicensed deepfakes that are genuinely indistinguishable to the average person, regardless of whether they're parody or not. (While "bad" parodies like SNL will continue to be protected as always.) You don't need new law. It's already against the law to copy someone's appearance in an…

I think you’ve misunderstood the point of impersonation laws, they are about stealing someone’s identity, this is not that... anyone watching these videos can see that it is NOT Jay Z in the video.

This isn't about impersonation but your copyright over your own likeness that can't be used without consent. Take a game like FIFA or Madden, they have to negotiate with the players (or their unions) in order to create realistic digital counterparts (including the names) and arguably better games often find themselves unable to compete because of this.

> anyone watching these videos can see that it is NOT Jay Z in the video.

I'm not that familiar with JayZ and it's more than enough that I would have been convinced and not given it a second thought. It's not obviously parody and the only tip off it was even fake was "(speech synthesis)" in the title.

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

#163

Post by eythian »

flukus wrote: post #162
andy_ppp wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’ve misunderstood the point of impersonation laws, they are about stealing someone’s identity, this is not that... anyone watching these videos can see that it is NOT Jay Z in the video.

This isn't about impersonation but your copyright over your own likeness that can't be used without consent. Take a game like FIFA or Madden, they have to negotiate with the players (or their unions) in order to create realistic digital counterparts (including the names) and arguably better games often find themselves unable to compete because of this. > anyone watching these videos can see that it is NOT Jay Z in th…

Is it really copyright? Based on what I know of it, it doesn't seem like copyright would apply. Trademark I could sorta see, if they registered their likeness.

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

#164

Post by jahn716 »

searchableguy wrote: post #150
jimmySixDOF wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pop stars on YouTube ? Fair use & freedom of speech ? Deepfakes will be used to cause a war in the near future where people are killed and who are we going to point our DMCA take down requests at then ? What will the third world victims of some hate story stirred up by AI doctored footage care about first amendment protections in America ? Deepfakes are a clear and present existential danger to ourselves and others a…

You can't believe what you see right now. I remember watching people doing insane things on Facebook back in 2011 but it was all fake. Nothing has changed.

>but it was all fake.

You mean like scenes shot with actors to imply certain events happening? ex. scenes protests in some city when it's actually just a bunch of actors making it look like a protest is happening?

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

#165

Post by PeterisP »

mninm wrote: post #143
cmeacham98 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is confusing, because I thought the DMCA only applied to copyright (it's the Digital Millennium _Copyright_ Act, after all) but perhaps I'm wrong and it includes provisions about trademark as well? As far as I know, a legally enforceable "DMCA takedown" can only be about copyright infringement. However, YouTube is under no obligation to not honor takedowns that aren't legally binding.

I also am not a lawyer but from what I understand the situation is actually more severe than that. I couldn't find the reference offhand but I've read that YouTube has no ability to adjudicate the validity of a DMCA takedown request at all. They must responed as proscribed by the DMCA. Which makes sense because once the DMCA is involved it's ultimately a legal dispute between the person that uploaded the video and th…

DMCA is not involved in the standard YouTube removal request process - the removal request does not have to fit the criteria of DMCA, the response does not have to fit the criteria of DMCA, and as long as both Jay-Z and Youtube are satisfied, the DMCA does not get involved at all, no matter what the poster of the removed content might wish.

If Jay-Z was not satisfied with the process, he could submit a DMCA request and YouTube would have to follow the DMCA requirements in processing it, but the current process is better for both of them (not for the posters of the contested content, though).

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

#166

Post by PeterisP »

stcredzero wrote: post #140
cmeacham98 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is confusing, because I thought the DMCA only applied to copyright (it's the Digital Millennium _Copyright_ Act, after all) but perhaps I'm wrong and it includes provisions about trademark as well? As far as I know, a legally enforceable "DMCA takedown" can only be about copyright infringement. However, YouTube is under no obligation to not honor takedowns that aren't legally binding.

However, YouTube is under no obligation to not honor takedowns that aren't legally binding. That's what's ripe for abuse. Why isn't it a fiduciary responsibility to their "partners" to make sure they aren't needlessly deprived of revenue, in situations where a 1st year law student could tell them there isn't a legal basis for the takedown?

Details matter - "takedown that is not legally binding" does not mean that "there isn't a legal basis for the takedown".

The legal basis for the takedown is the language in the Youtube terms and conditions that says that Youtube can take down the content at their discretion. It does not matter if that decision is caused by a non-binding takedown request of a self-asserted copyright owner, or by a drunken manager randomly clicking to remove videos, the legal arrangement between Youtube and their "partners" does not assume any fiduciary responsibility to ensure that your videos will be kept unless absoltely needed, and no current law is forcing them to assume that responsibility.

I mean, the statement "why isn't it a fiduciary responsibility to their "partners" to make sure they aren't needlessly deprived of revenue," seems very weird from the perspective of law - why would there be such a responsibility? Do you have some law in mind that would cause it? E.g. CEOs have fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, stockbrokers have fiduciary responsibility to their clients due to specific laws, but in general there is no fiduciary responsibility between parties in a contract, the parties can be 'hostile' towards each other as much as they want.

The default legal position is that every private actor is free to act as they want for their own benefit as long as they are not breaking any laws or contracts. If I cause you some losses by doing things I am entitled to do, there's no possible liability - in order to claim damages, I have to have done something wrong. So in the absence of a specific law or contract requiring Amazon to ensure that their "partners" aren't needlessly deprived of revenue, that lost revenue is not Amazon's problem, and they're entitled to (for example) intentionally cause partners to lose that revenue if it benefits Amazon in some way and there's no statute or contract that restricts Amazon from doing so.

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

#167

Post by michaelt »

eythian wrote: post #163
flukus wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about impersonation but your copyright over your own likeness that can't be used without consent. Take a game like FIFA or Madden, they have to negotiate with the players (or their unions) in order to create realistic digital counterparts (including the names) and arguably better games often find themselves unable to compete because of this. > anyone watching these videos can see that it is NOT Jay Z in th…

Is it really copyright? Based on what I know of it, it doesn't seem like copyright would apply. Trademark I could sorta see, if they registered their likeness.

Quite a few places recognise "personality rights" [1] although the details vary from place to place. Sports games tend to comply so they can be sold everywhere.

Some form of personality rights make sense to me, as otherwise Mickey Mouse would enjoy more legal protection than you and I. And obviously it's not an absolute right - you can't sue red light cameras for photographing you.

There's also the question of whether a neural net trained on a copyrighted image or video is a derivative work - in contrast to a 3D model made by an artist who merely references copyrighted images or videos.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

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

#168

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

crazygringo wrote: post #89

So if I understand this correctly... YouTube took these videos down based on a copyright (DMCA?) claim. Which of course isn't a court ruling or anything. At the same time, no court would ever uphold this removal, because it obviously falls under "parody" which is protected. (Otherwise shows like Saturday Night Live couldn't even exist.) After all, the end result is no different from a really good vocal impersonator.…

I don't get it. the videos are still here and I can access them just fine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyemXtkB-xk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7u-y9oqUSw

was this an automatic takedown and maybe they have meanwhile been made available again?

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

#169

Post by icu »

The law is going to have to catch up here. Jay-Z has worked very hard to make his 'voice fingerprint' have value. Having listened to the deepfake, it's an extremely accurate copy of Jay-Z's voice. To what degree does Jay-Z's voice constitute a 'work of art' and to what degree does a copy become a forgery? You could say that an impression made by a real person is a 'work of art' but if you remove a real person and use ML, is it still a 'work of art'? We really need to consider the existential questions raised by primitive forms of AI and consider what AGI means from a philosophical perspective before lawyers and judges start defining what can be done with AI in society.

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

#170

Post by mnd999 »

gpm wrote: post #124
jameslevy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not a deepfake is used for a parody is far less important than whether content using deepfakes identifies its artificial nature. Deepfake content masquerading as real content is actually dangerous and should be regulated as such. But no, Jay-Z should not be able to take down parodies on YouTube that make it clear to the viewer that they are using deepfakes.

Deepfake used for parody is almost certainly protected by the first amendment under US law. So legally that is a very important distinction. (Morally, well, that's not a productive thing to debate on the internet usually)

If it’s convincing enough to make most people believe that it’s real it’s not a parody.
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