Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#381

Post by chipweinberger »

not2b wrote: post #113
ThinkBeat wrote: post #75

SJ mentions deep fakes. It is quite possible that OpenAI has synthesized the voice from SJ material. However If OpenAI can produce the woman who did is the current voice, and she has a voice nearly identical that of SJ would that mean OpenAI had done something wrong? Does SJ since she is a celebrity hold a "patent" right to sound like her. The more likely scenario is that they have hired a person and told her to try…

The answer, based on two different court precedents (Bette Midler, Tom Waits), is that the company can't do that. Companies cannot hire soundalike people to advertise their products after the person with a distinctive voice they really wanted declined. Doesn't matter if they hired a soundalike and used her voice.

If they are not trying to trick people into believing xyz person did the voice acting, and instead are going for a certain style, I think they would be protected by freedom of expression. Think of how authors of books describe voices in great detail.

i.e. intent matters.

In this case, since the other voice actor has a clearly different voice than SJ, it seems like their intent is to just copy the general 'style' of the voice, and not SJ's voice itself. Speculative though.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#382

Post by sneak »

nickthegreek wrote: post #102
anon373839 wrote: post #62

Well, that statement lays out a damning timeline: - OpenAI approached Scarlett last fall, and she refused. - Two days before the GPT-4o launch, they contacted her agent and asked that she reconsider. (Two days! This means they already had everything they needed to ship the product with Scarlett’s cloned voice.) - Not receiving a response, OpenAI demos the product anyway, with Sam tweeting “her” in reference to Scarle…

This statement from scarlet really changed my perspective. I use and loved the Sky voice and I did feel it sounded a little like her, but moreover it was the best of their voice offerings. I was mad when they removed it. But now I’m mad it was ever there to begin with. This timeline makes it clear that this wasn’t a coincidence and maybe not even a hiring of an impressionist (which is where things get a little more w…

Why are you mad? We have no rights to the sound of our voice. There is nothing wrong with someone or something else making sounds that sound like us, even if we don’t want it to happen.

No one is harmed.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#383

Post by simonsarris »

infotainment wrote: post #38
aaronharnly wrote: post #11

Well, this confirms that OpenAI have been shooting from the hip, not that we needed much confirmation. The fact that they repeatedly tried to hire Johansson, then went ahead and made a soundalike while explicitly describing that they were trying to make it be like her voice in the movie … is pretty bad for them.

It’s definitely sketchy (classic OpenAI) But my question is: is what they did actually illegal? Can someone copyright their own voice?

This is known as personality rights or right to publicity. Impersonating someone famous (eg faking their likeness or voice for an ad) is often illegal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#384

Post by Ar-Curunir »

z7 wrote: post #363
option wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Very obvious bias against OpenAI in the comments here. Possible motives: a) there's a visceral human reaction against anyone extraordinarily successful and powerful (Nietzsche wrote about this). b) resentment for OpenAI's advancements in code generation and its possible impact on the job market. I don't think much of the outrage here is motivated by altruism, it's probably more about siding with whoever opposes your…

Or maybe the prospect of theft and unpermissioned copying of an extremely personal quality (one's voice) is (correctly) being called out?

People aren't as selfish/petty as you're making them out.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#385

Post by sneak »

npunt wrote: post #129
anon373839 wrote: post #62

Well, that statement lays out a damning timeline: - OpenAI approached Scarlett last fall, and she refused. - Two days before the GPT-4o launch, they contacted her agent and asked that she reconsider. (Two days! This means they already had everything they needed to ship the product with Scarlett’s cloned voice.) - Not receiving a response, OpenAI demos the product anyway, with Sam tweeting “her” in reference to Scarle…

When people cheat on (relatively) small things, it's usually an indication they'll cheat on big things too

Who cheated whom? Out of what?

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#386

Post by GaggiX »

zamadatix wrote: post #356
GaggiX wrote: post #214

"Sky" voice has been the default for about 8 months now, I think, if it resembles Scarlett Johansson so much, why does no one seem to have mentioned it before?

It's been mentioned so much in the last 8 months it prompted me to go watch "Her" 11 years after it came out.

I only saw Scarlett Johansson and "Her" being mentioned only after the presentation of ChatGPT-4o. I saw people asking for a Scarlett Johansson voice tho.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#387

Post by mkehrt »

sneak wrote: post #382
nickthegreek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement from scarlet really changed my perspective. I use and loved the Sky voice and I did feel it sounded a little like her, but moreover it was the best of their voice offerings. I was mad when they removed it. But now I’m mad it was ever there to begin with. This timeline makes it clear that this wasn’t a coincidence and maybe not even a hiring of an impressionist (which is where things get a little more w…

Why are you mad? We have no rights to the sound of our voice. There is nothing wrong with someone or something else making sounds that sound like us, even if we don’t want it to happen. No one is harmed.

Are you sure? You certainly have rights to your likeness--it can't be used commercially without permission. Di you know this doesn't cover your voice?

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#388

Post by toomuchtodo »

smt88 wrote: post #364
ncr100 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scar Jo thought it sounded like herself, and so did people who knew her personally. That is what matters. OWNERSHIP over her contributions to the world.

I mostly agree with you, but I actually don't think it matters if it sounded exactly like her or not. The crime is in the training: did they use her voice or not? If someone licenses an impersonator's voice and it gets very close to the real thing, that feels like an impossible situation for a court to settle and it should probably just be legal (if repugnant).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#389

Post by mateus1 »

nabla9 wrote: post #107

Johansson has money to hire lawyers and immediate access to media, so they backed off. Altman and OpenAI will walk over everyone here without any difficulty if they decide to take whats ours.

I agree. They’re clearly have ethics beyond “steal whatever data is out there as fast as you can”.

Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

#390

Post by ocdtrekkie »

howbadisthat wrote: post #371
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't murky, because law is about intent more than result. It doesn't matter if they hired someone who sounds like Scarlett, it matters if they intended to do so . If they accidentally hired someone who sounds identical, that's not illegal. But if they intended to, even if it is a pretty poor imitation, it would be illegal because the intent to do it was there. A court of law would be looking for things like email…

Under what legal theory is intending to do something which is legal (hiring a person that has a voice you want) becomes illegal because there is another person who has a similar voice?

It's not intending to do something legal, it's intending to do something illegal: Stealing their likeness. The fact you used an otherwise legal procedure to do the illegal activity doesn't make it less illegal.
Post reply on HN