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Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
161–170 of 1001 posts
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#162Earlier 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…
But it's clearly not her voice right? The version that's been on the app for a year just isn't. Like, it clearly intending to be slightly reminiscent of her, but it's also very clearly not. Are we seriously saying we can't make voices that are similar to celebrities, when not using their actual voice?
Sure they could have taken her to court but right now they don't want the bad publicity, especially since it would put everything else in the shadow of such a scandalous "story". Better to just back off, let S.J. win and move on and start planning on they're gonna spend all that paper money they got with announcement of a new, more advanced model. It's a financial decision and a fairly predictable one. I'm glad she won this time.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There is a big, big difference between actively and intentional imitating a voice, and having a broadly similar voice though!
A difference that gets increasingly narrow when you are desperately trying to license the original likeness.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
It probably made things worse, but the fact that they reached out to her to use her voice and she explicitly refused would be sufficient ammo I feel. (Not a lawyer of course). Of course, Twitter continues to bring people with big egos to their own downfall.
Not to mention that it matches up pretty much exactly with the Bette Midler and Tom Waits cases, where courts ruled against companies using soundalikes after the person they really wanted turned them down. Doesn't matter if they hired a soundalike actress rather than clone her voice, it still violates her rights.
I am guessing this is only because they first tried to hire the originals before hiring sound-alikes... otherwise, would it mean that if your voice sounds similar to someone else, you can't do voice work?
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#165I really hope she sues the company to hell and back. She has the resources to fight back and make an example of them, and they have the resources to make it worthwhile.
I'm not sure she can do much since OpenAI withdrew so quickly. What damages are there?
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#166OpenAI: it's like Uber for not respecting common decency.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#167Well, 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…
The tweet is so fucking brazen lol
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not precisely copyright, but most states recognize some form of personality rights, which encompass a person's voice just as much as the person's name or visual appearance.
But where it will get murky is people sound like other people. Most voices are hardly unique. It will be interesting to see where this lands.
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 emails about what sort of actress they were looking for, how they described that requirement, how they evaluated the candidate and selected her, and of course, how the CEO announced it alongside a movie title Scarlett starred in.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#169Well, 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
I would love to see the providence of their training data.
Re: Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
#170Well, 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…
With the recent departures at OpenAI it seems that all ethics and morals are going down the drain and OpenAI becoming the big-bully.