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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

#801

Post by abvdasker »

jprete wrote: post #324
laborcontract wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always interpreted the hacker in HN as a spirit, irrespective of vocation.

What is endearing and admirable as the underdog very easily becomes contemptible abuse in the biggest dog of the pack. It's not a contradiction - the hacking spirit is a trait that causes more damage the more power you have.

The persistent belief in the tech industry as some kind of underdog I think explains much of the recent deplorable behavior by some of the richest people on the planet. A bunch of unbelievably wealthy nerds are mentally trapped in the past and too out of touch to realize they have become the bullies.

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

#802

Post by jonathankoren »

smt88 wrote: post #737
jonathankoren wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been settled law for 34 years. See Tom Waits v Frito-Lay. They literally hired an impersonator, and it cost them 2.5 million (~6 million today). https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...

That case seems completely dissimilar to what OpenAI did. Frito-Lay copied a song by Waits (with different lyrics) and had an impersonator sing it. Witnesses testified they thought Waits had sung the song. If OpenAI were to anonymously copy someone's voice by training AI on an imitation, you wouldn't have: - a recognizable singing voice - music identified with a singer - market confusion about whose voice it is (sinc…

Let me connect the dots for you.

Company identifies celebrity voice they want. (Frito=Waits, OpenAi=ScarJo)

Company comes up with novel thing for the the voice to say. (Frito=Song, OpenAI=ChatGpt)

Company decides they don’t need the celebrity they want (Frito=Waits, OpenAI=ScarJo) and instead hire an impersonator (Frito=singer, {OpenAI=impersonator or OpenAI=ScarJo-public-recordings}) to get what they want (Frito=a-facsimile-of-Tom-Waitte’s-voice-in-a-commercial, OpenAi=a-fascimilie-of-ScarJo’s-voice-in-their-chatbot)

When made public, people confuse the fascimilie as the real thing.

I don’t see how you don’t see a parallel. It’s literally best for beat the same, particularly around the part about using an impersonator as an excuse.

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

#803

Post by splatzone »

thatoneguy wrote: post #436
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…

At least in past court cases I’m familiar, you can’t use an impersonator and get people to think it’s the real thing. It’s not like Tom Waits ever wanted to hock chips https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...

There’s a nice YouTube doc telling the story of this, and Tom Waits’ hatred of advertising - https://youtu.be/W7J01e-OIMA?si=57IJooNwg5oTfh62

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

#804

Post by askl »

trustno2 wrote: post #707
windexh8er wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about the situation is that Altman is willing to lie and steal a celebrity's voice for use in ChatGPT. What he did, the timeline, everything - is sleazy if, in fact, that's the story. The really concerning part here is that Altman is, and wants to be, a large part of AI regulation [0]. Quite the public contradiction. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-openai-artificial...

Altman wants to be a part of AI regulation in the same way Bankman Fried wanted to be a part of cryptocurrency regulation.

I always had trouble telling apart those two Sams. Turns out they're the same person.

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

#805

Post by [deleted] »

rvz wrote: post #189
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…

Almost as if they knew that they cloned her voice without her permission. Don't hear any arguments on how this is fair-use. (It isn't) Why? Because everyone (including OpenAI) knows it clearly isn't fair-use even after pulling the voice.

[deleted]

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

#806

Post by meat_machine »

smugma wrote: post #267
recursive wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would it mean that if your voice sounds similar to someone else, you can't do voice work? Maybe only when the director's instructions are "I want you to sound like XYZ".

Exception: Parody is covered under the first amendment.

>Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White had established herself as a TV personality, and consequently appeared as a spokesperson for advertisers. Samsung produced a television commercial advertising its VCRs, showing a robot wearing a dress and with other similarities to White standing beside a Wheel of Fortune game board. Samsung, in their own internal documents, called this the "Vanna White ad". White sued Samsung for violations of California Civil Code section 3344, California common law right of publicity, and the federal Lanham Act. The United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted summary judgment against White on all counts, and White appealed.

>The Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court, finding that White had a cause of action based on the value of her image, and that Samsung had appropriated this image. Samsung's assertion that this was a parody was found to be unavailing, as the intent of the ad was not to make fun of White's characteristics, but to sell VCRs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_v._Samsung_Electronics_A....

Maybe it depends on which court will handle the case, but OpenAI's core intent isn't parody, but rather to use someone's likeness as a way to make money.

(I am not a lawyer)

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

#807

Post by romwell »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #332
romwell wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, that's apples-to-pizzas comparison. You're conflating work and identity . There's an ocean of difference between mimicking the style of someone's art in an original work, and literally cloning someone's likeness for marketing/business reasons. You can hire someone to make art in the style of Taylor Swift, that's OK. You can't start selling Taylor Swift figurines by the same principle. What Sam Altman did, figu…

But they aren't doing anything with her voice(allegedly?). They're doing something with a voice that some claim sounds like hers. But if it isn't, then it is more like selling a figurine called Sally that happens to look a lot like Taylor Swift. Sally has a right to exist even if she happens to look like Taylor Swift. Has there ever been an up and coming artist who was not allowed to sell their own songs, because the…

TL;DR: This question had already been settled in 2001 [3]:

The court determined that Midler should be compensated for the misappropriation of her voice, holding that, when "a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs and have committed a tort in California."

I hope there's going to be no further hypotheticals after this.

-----

>They're doing something with a voice that some claim sounds like hers.

Yes, that's what a likeness is.

If you start using your own paintings of Taylor Swift in a product without her permission, you'll run afoul of the law, even though your painting is obviously not the actual Taylor Swift, and you painted it from memory.

>But if it isn't, then it is more like selling a figurine called Sally that happens to look a lot like Taylor Swift. Sally has a right to exist even if she happens to look like Taylor Swift.

Sally has a right to exist, not the right to be distributed, sold, and otherwise used for commercial gain without Taylor Swift's permission.

California Civil Code Section 3344(a) states:

Any person who knowingly uses another’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner, on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of, products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person’s prior consent, or, in the case of a minor, the prior consent of his parent or legal guardian, shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured as a result thereof.

Note the word "likeness".

Read more at [1] on Common Law protections of identity.

>Has there ever been an up and coming artist who was not allowed to sell their own songs, because they happened to sound a lot like an already famous artist? I doubt it.

Wrong question.

Can you give me an example of an artist which was allowed to do a close-enough impersonation without explicit approval?

No? Well, now you know a good reason for that.

Tribute bands are legally in the grey area[2], for that matter.

[1] https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-right-publicity-...

[2] https://lawyerdrummer.com/2020/01/are-tribute-acts-actually-...

[3] https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...

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

#808

Post by planede »

romwell wrote: post #271
chipweinberger wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nitpick: it's not copyright, it's personality rights and likeness. It's a violation of it nonetheless.

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

#809

Post by meat_machine »

rockemsockem wrote: post #254
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's almost certainly not legal exactly because of the surrounding context of openai trying to hire her along with the "her" tweet. There's not a lot of precedent around voice impersonation, but there is for a very, very similar case against Ford https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co .

I am not a lawyer, but other potentially relevant cases:

https://www.quimbee.com/cases/waits-v-frito-lay-inc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_v._Samsung_Electronics_A....

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

#810

Post by lambdaxyzw »

hyperhopper wrote: post #566
sangupta wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the recent departures at OpenAI it seems that all ethics and morals are going down the drain and OpenAI becoming the big-bully.

There were never any. None of the models or code are actually open. It claims to be a nonprofit but is effectively a for profit company pulling the strings of a nonprofit just to avoid taxes.

>There were never any.

This is a bit unfair. Some people left OpenAI on the ground of ethics, because they were unsatisfied with how this supposed nonprofit operates. The ethics was there, but OpenAI got rid of it.

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