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Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

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

#271

Post by romwell »

chipweinberger wrote: post #230
hn_20591249 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like sama may have put a big hole in that argument when he tweeted "her", now it is very easy to say that they knowingly cloned ScarJo's likeness. When will tech leaders learn to stop tweeting.

Or perhaps they cloned a character's likeness? Is there a distinction? Are they trying to make it sound like Her, or SJ? Or just trying to go for a similar style? i.e. making artistic choices in designing their product Note: I've never watched the movie.

>Is there a distinction?

Yes, that would be a copyright violation on top of everything else.

Great idea though!

I'm going to start selling Keanu Reeves T-Shirts using this little trick.

See, I'm not using Keanu's likeness if I don't label it as Keanu. I'm just going to write Neo in a Tweet, and then say I'm just cloning Neo's likeness.

Neo is not a real person, so Keanu can't sue me! Bwahahaha

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

#272

Post by ml-anon »

hehdhdjehehegwv wrote: post #143
MrMetlHed wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to see this get far enough for discovery to see how that all played out behind the scenes.

They’ll settle as soon as they figure that out. Idiot tax.

She has no incentive to settle and actually could win big by being the figurehead of the creative industry against AI. It’s understandable why she accepted a settlement from Disney, but there’s no reason why she should settle with a random startup that has no other influence on her employability in Hollywood.

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

#274

Post by callalex »

howbadisthat wrote: post #251
crazygringo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely illegal. You don't need to copyright anything, you simply own the rights your own likeness -- your visual appearance and your voice. A company can't take a photo from your Facebook and plaster it across an advertisement for their product without you giving them the rights to do that. And if you're a known public figure, this includes lookalikes and soundalikes as well. You can't hire a ScarJo imperson…

Scarlet owns the voice of a stranger that happens to sound like her? That seems absurd. Just find someone who sounds like her, then hire them for the rights to their voice.

It’s really hard to assume in good faith that you are unfamiliar with the concept of impersonation. Just in case: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impersonator

There is no doubt that the hired actor was an impersonator, this was explicitly stated by scama himself.

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

#275

Post by pseudalopex »

hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #199
emmp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two similar famous cases I know offhand. Probably there are more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co . Bette Middler successfully sued Ford for impersonating her likeness in a commercial. Then also: https://casetext.com/case/waits-v-frito-lay-inc Tom Waits successfully sued Frito Lay for using an imitator without approval in a radio commercial. The key seems to be that if someone is fam…

Both cases seem to have also borrowed from the artists’ songs too however. That could perhaps make a difference.

Bette Midler and Tom Waits didn't control their songs when they sued the companies.

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

#276

Post by spuz »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #224
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…

I wouldn't necessarily call that damning. "Soundalikes" are very common in the ad industry. For example, a car company approached the band sigur ros to include some of their music in a car commercial. Sigur ros declined. A few months later the commercial airs with a song that sounds like an unreleased sigur ros song, but really they just paid a composer to make something that sounds like sigur ros, but isn't. So mayb…

The damning part is that they tried to contact her and get her to reconsider their offer only 2 days before the model was demoed. That tells you that at the very least they either felt a moral or legal obligation to get her to agree with their release of the model.

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

#277

Post by mcphage »

ncr100 wrote: post #246
andrewinardeer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it sounded like Jodie Foster.

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.

Clearly Sam Altman though it sounded like ScarJo as well :-(

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

#279

Post by romwell »

zone411 wrote: post #175
signal11 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI claimed they hired a different professional actor who performed using her own voice [1]. If so, I suspect they’ll be okay in a court of law — having a voice similar to a celebrity isn’t illegal. It’ll likely cheese off actors and performers though. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/05/20/openai-sa...

It probably is illegal in CA: https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article... "when voice is sufficient indicia of a celebrity's identity, the right of publicity protects against its imitation for commercial purposes without the celebrity's consent."

I'd be surprised if it was legal anywhere in the US, but this just puts the final nail into Sky's coffin.

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

#280

Post by tsimionescu »

threatofrain wrote: post #148
gedy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I'd agree if this were some vague "artist style", but this was clearly an attempt to duplicate a living person, a media celebrity no less.

Is this different from the various videos of the Harry Potter actors doing comedic high fashion ads? Because those were very well received. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipuqLy87-3A

That has a much better chance of falling under fair use (parody, non-commercial) if the actors ever tried to sue.

There is a major difference between parodying someone by imitating them while clearly and almost explicitly being an imitation; and deceptively imitating someone to suggest they are associated with your product in a serious manner.

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