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What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

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Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#11

Post by threeseed »

bgentry wrote: post #6
jmclnx wrote: post #3

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?

What if I look like a famous actor/actress or model? Should I not be allowed to act or model professionally? Or if I sound like a famous singer, should I not be allowed to sing for profit? What if my paintings have a similar style to a famous painter, should I not be allowed to paint for a living?

[flagged]

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#12

Post by pyeri »

jmclnx wrote: post #3

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?

I think it might go the Google vs Oracle way. The courts might do the right and ethical thing (Google wins) but the basis will be a specific workaround (fair use of APIs) instead of something beneficial for society as a whole (APIs can't be copyrighted).

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#13

Post by telesilla »

bgentry wrote: post #6
jmclnx wrote: post #3

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?

What if I look like a famous actor/actress or model? Should I not be allowed to act or model professionally? Or if I sound like a famous singer, should I not be allowed to sing for profit? What if my paintings have a similar style to a famous painter, should I not be allowed to paint for a living?

Actors use stage names all the time because the actors union doesn't allow duplicate names. Emma Stone's birthname for example is Emily Stone, who is another actor. Actors and musicians are also known to seek as much uniqueness as possible to be able to trade on that uniqueness. If you were a talented singer or painter you'd have trained early on to develop your own distinct voice or style, it's how the music and art schools work.

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#14

Post by quasse »

delecti wrote: post #7
tensor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there must be precedence here. This can't be the first time people hired sound-a-like voice actors for something.

Yes, and a case with a lot of similarity too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co .

This is interesting because the district court seems to initially have decided the opposite of Tom Waits vs Frito Lay (http://tomwaitslibrary.info/biography/copyright/frito-lay/).

Looks like the appellate court came to the same conclusion though, a famous person's voice is distinctive to their identity and intentionally imitating it is a type of false association claim.

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#15

Post by bryanlarsen »

sandworm101 wrote: post #8
jmclnx wrote: post #3

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?

No. Contrary to layperson belief, there is little new in deepfakes. People have been faking the image of celebs for many years decades (SNL) and faking their personality even further (Hustler v Falwell, Lohan v GTA). The porn industry has an entire genre dedicated to parodies of famous people and famous situations. And there are the professional celeb lookalikes. Every historical film involves someone trying to mimic…

That's fair use. Fair use is limited to commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship.

OpenAI will try and claim fair use, but I don't think they'll succeed.

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#16

Post by threeseed »

sandworm101 wrote: post #8
jmclnx wrote: post #3

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?

No. Contrary to layperson belief, there is little new in deepfakes. People have been faking the image of celebs for many years decades (SNL) and faking their personality even further (Hustler v Falwell, Lohan v GTA). The porn industry has an entire genre dedicated to parodies of famous people and famous situations. And there are the professional celeb lookalikes. Every historical film involves someone trying to mimic…

Parody is considered fair use because the public knows that it isn't the celebrity.

This isn't the case here.

If you want analogies it's like creating a Ferrari body, putting it around a cheap car and trying to sell it.

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#17

Post by vessenes »

freejazz wrote: post #5
jmclnx wrote: post #3

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?

> If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? It continues to baffle me that people formulate this issue as it just being about the similar voices as opposed to OpenAI's efforts to capitalize on ScarJo's likeness by making explicit references to ScarJo and her work, in combination with using a similar voice. Obviously, it is not against the law to have a similar voice as some…

Just to be clear here, which of these two circumstances do you believe is at play in the johannsen v OpenAI dispute?

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#18

Post by opello »

freejazz wrote: post #5
jmclnx wrote: post #3

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications. I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?

> If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ? It continues to baffle me that people formulate this issue as it just being about the similar voices as opposed to OpenAI's efforts to capitalize on ScarJo's likeness by making explicit references to ScarJo and her work, in combination with using a similar voice. Obviously, it is not against the law to have a similar voice as some…

> Obviously, it is against the law to capitalize upon another person's likeness without their permission.

This seems similar to MikeRoweSoft.com[1] which was ultimately settled instead of being tested in court.

Maybe closer, does this line of thinking mean that the twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson[2] couldn't have distinct professional acting careers without one another's explicit permission because of their similarity (capitalized on for Full House) as one would necessarily infringe on the likeness of the other? That seems like a bridge too far.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#19

Post by sandworm101 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #15
sandworm101 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Contrary to layperson belief, there is little new in deepfakes. People have been faking the image of celebs for many years decades (SNL) and faking their personality even further (Hustler v Falwell, Lohan v GTA). The porn industry has an entire genre dedicated to parodies of famous people and famous situations. And there are the professional celeb lookalikes. Every historical film involves someone trying to mimic…

That's fair use. Fair use is limited to commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. OpenAI will try and claim fair use, but I don't think they'll succeed.

Fair use only applies to copyrighted material. A voice, a mode of speech, is not copyrightable. Step one in a copyright defense it to prove that no "taking" occurred, or that any involved material wasn't protected by copyright (Lohan v. GTA). Only then do you get to affirmative defenses such as fair use (Hustler). This case would not get that far, not absent evidence of literal copies of her recorded voice being played back by the software.

Re: What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

#20

Post by bgentry »

threeseed wrote: post #11
bgentry wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I look like a famous actor/actress or model? Should I not be allowed to act or model professionally? Or if I sound like a famous singer, should I not be allowed to sing for profit? What if my paintings have a similar style to a famous painter, should I not be allowed to paint for a living?

[flagged]

Fairly sure I understand the public details about this situation. We have at least one newspaper that has reviewed recordings or footage from the voice actor and confirmed that the OpenAI voice is a direct match for her actual regular speaking voice. We also have records illustrating that the CEO had no direct involvement in the hiring of the voice talent, and that there was no direction given for her to "sound like 'Her'".

Without any evidence that OpenAI set out to intentionally find someone who sounded like a fictional character, why should this individual be prevented from seeking work as a voice actor in any capacity?

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