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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

#21

Post by amanaplanacanal »

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” isn’t really a legal argument, though.

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

#22

Post by freejazz »

opello wrote: post #18
freejazz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 similari…

>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.

What line of thinking? Right of publicity laws are not new. If one of the twins purported to be the other, yes, why wouldn't the other twin have a claim? What is controversial about that?

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

#23

Post by freejazz »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #21
freejazz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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” isn’t really a legal argument, though.

I'm not making a legal argument, I'm discussing the absolutely awful intuitions constantly being put forth in the discussion of this potential case on HN.

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

#24

Post by orangecat »

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]

They wanted Scarlett Johansson specifically, couldn't get her and then hired someone

They hired the Sky voice actress well before contacting SJ.

with the intent to convince the public it was her.

The only evidence for this is Sam's "her" tweet, which can easily be referring to the concept of a realistically-voiced AI assistant rather than SJ in particular.

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

#25

Post by Someone1234 »

As far as I know, nobody has filed any cases in court, yet I see multiple articles and misstatements claiming otherwise which is odd.

This "case" was essentially resolved immediately and seemingly without major damage to either party. But people are absolutely chomping at the bit to have this be some kind of court-case, even if such a case would be long, expensive, and likely with two losers and zero winners.

If people want to discuss some hypothetical court-case go at it, but the chance of this actually going anywhere is low. I just feel like this is filling some "AI news" void.

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

#26

Post by vessenes »

I’m mystified as to two things here: first that people feel this is ‘open and shut’ in Ms Johannsen’s favor, and second that this hasn’t been settled economically.

IF: OpenAI had advertised SJ as being a voice, had sold the plus subscription with that voice as a benefit, and had instructed talent scouting and internal editors to ‘copy her’ then this would be open and shut. We know for sure the first part did not happen: if there’s a case then discovery will tell us the second part.

If on the other hand they chose the voice for sky because they liked the actors natural voice, whether or not it was because they were reminded of SJ that is anything but open and shut- in fact it seems very difficult to me; a judge must determine that another actor cannot work at all, even if she makes no attempt to sound alike, sell as SJ, all through a platform that shows undeniable value regardless of voice. Guys, SJ is beautiful and likable. But this is a big ask of a credible federal judge.

As to money, I’m also mystified why they can’t ink a deal like: the largest single film voice acting payment is roughly $15mm. Let’s do a deal where we use your actual voice (which I would say is obviously different than sky) and rev share 50/50 with you on premium purchases, 50mm guaranteed year one.

It seems to me like this would open up the best possible world where people can have gpt4o talk with the voice of whatever actor that’s licensed, and these actors have a new distribution vehicle that’s valuable. Again SJ may not want to license for whatever reason she chooses, but I bet that OpenAI didn’t make a serious rev share offer, and I think they should.

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

#27

Post by Maxatar »

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…

Because it's not obvious and just using that word over and over again doesn't make it true.

Did OpenAI want to use a similar voice to Scarlett Johansson's specifically because it's her, and they want to capitalize off of her fame or her personhood specifically?

Or did OpenAI want to use a voice that sounds pleasant and appealing and as it so happens Scarlett Johansson has just such a voice and used such a voice in a famous movie about a talking AI?

In other words, if Scarlett Johansson had a different voice, perhaps even an unappealing one, would they still have used it because it's something particular about her fame and character they wanted to leverage, or did they use a similar sounding voice to hers because of the technical qualities of that voice that she happens to have and which has been demonstrated by her to be effective.

There are many other potential scenarios that one can argue are relevant to this case, and ultimately my point is that this case isn't obvious unless you come to it with an opinion already made up and have failed to appreciate the numerous points of view.

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

#28

Post by justin66 »

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 ?

The question implies that you believe a professional voice actor has a single voice they can use. That is a silly thing to believe.

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

#29

Post by mateus1 »

vessenes wrote: post #26

I’m mystified as to two things here: first that people feel this is ‘open and shut’ in Ms Johannsen’s favor, and second that this hasn’t been settled economically. IF: OpenAI had advertised SJ as being a voice, had sold the plus subscription with that voice as a benefit, and had instructed talent scouting and internal editors to ‘copy her’ then this would be open and shut. We know for sure the first part did not happ…

It’s not just a matter of the voice being a 1:1 match with Johansenns’s or that it used it as an input to build the model. What is definitive is that Open AI intently based this on the film Her as per docs and tweets && they used her voice similarity after being declined more than once.

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

#30

Post by bsimpson »

It's interesting to see Sam Altman on the record claiming this was a complete accident the same week that it came out that he got fired from OpenAI last year for having a pattern of handwaving "misunderstandings" when he got caught on the wrong side of the truth.

Nobody believes that you gave a feminine voice to an AI and nobody involved considered the similarities to the most famous feminine AI character, especially when you started out by trying to hire the same actress to do the voice.

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