Porn Sites Still Won’t Take Down Nonconsensual Deepfakes
wired.com
wired.com
If so, what is that bright-line, and what unforeseen consequences might legislating it have?
I recognize the limits on regulating free speech are weaker in the UK where this story originated as opposed to in the US.
Something like "can an unknowing person genuinely confuse the copy with the original, and did the person who produce the copy did it to exploit such confusion".
Arguably from a copyright perspective deepfakes might be derrivitive works of the used source material, but that is generally owned by the photographer not the model.
Probably personality rights would be the way to go here, rather than trademark or copyright.
IANAL.
Not one that represents a universal truth - there never is. We decide on lines that are arbitrary to reality but interesting to humans because we have no other choice. Note that this is different from subjective vs objective, which is a second axis, but is often used as a synonym for the first when creating a false dilemma. Objectivity is more relevant when deciding on the written language of the implementation, which is different from the interesting moral problem.
If a picture could be confused for being something created using a given model as a reference input, then the model has a right to claim a violation of their likeness rights. Just like a can of soda that tries to confuse you into thinking it’s Coca-Cola, without ever saying “Coca-Cola” anywhere on it, is violating Coca-Cola Corporation’s trade-dress rights.
free speech enjoys strong protections in the US, but so does copyright. I'm not sure why the article acts like all the legal processes available are onerous and/or inapplicable. it's not complicated to file a DMCA takedown, and it would almost certainly result in these videos being taken down with minimal review.
of course, you would likely see the same thing as with other copyrighted material. you can push it off the main sites where it gets the most views, but if people really want to upload and view something, they will find a place to host it. you can either accept this, or you can push for more draconian laws that don't fix the problem, but make everyone's lives a little more difficult.
As is, it is already illegal to use Emma Watson's "likeness" without her approval in pretty much every western country, including the EU and the Czech republic. "likeness" here means that the fake is good enough for regular people to recognize the actress.
For example, see Midler vs. Ford: http://rightofpublicity.com/pdf/cases/midler.pdf
The article continues: “Until there is a strong reason for [porn websites] to try to take them down and to filter them, I strongly believe nothing is going to happen,” Patrini says.
Obviously. That "strong reason" is called a lawsuit and is pretty easy to organize. You might even sue for punitive damages and recoup your legal costs, meaning a celebrity successfully suing might be as expensive as $350,000 per video. I'd say that is a very strong reason to take things down, if - and apparently only if - the person requesting the takedown is following legal procedures.
"Under California law, intentional imitation of a celebrity’s distinctive and widely known voice for commercial purposes constitutes tortious misappropriation."
Intentional is the key word here. So I presume that if you look like Emma Watson and go with your real name, you're fine. If you pretend to be Emma Watson, then it becomes infringing.
But if the video says "this is a deepfake" and is not showing up in search results for her name, then it should be fine.
Its just that in the latter case, probably nobody is going to watch it, so the discussion is then moot anyway.
[1] https://fightthenewdrug.org/pornhub-refused-to-remove-videos...
I'm pretty sure you can, as in - the law doesn't forbid you from doing so. But the person you are portraying may and will sue you for damages and/or portion of your profits. But that would be a civil case, not a criminal one, right?
Edit: I was wrong :)
I got a popup that said "PORN KILLS LOVE" TM copyright by "Fight the New Drug, Inc" and then I thought "ooh this is propaganda" and didn't actually read the article.
Also if you aren't very explicit in saying that this is not really a famous celebrity, then you're basically defaming that celebrity, which is also not protected speech.
Its not clear how you move from that story to "The kinds of people who work for Pornhub aren’t going to have moral qualms about this", and even less clear what this has to do with DeepFakes.
There is clearly a real problem with people sharing non-consensual real material; we probably shouldn't muddy the water by mixing it with the phenomenon of DeepFakes - the morality of which is pretty much just a matter of opinion.
How would it be possible to tell an image created with image2text or similar was generated from a model trained on images of child pornography? In this case it would probably still be illegal. Although nobody is harmed from the generation of such an image the courts would probably only care about where the source of the image originated, as with copyright.
Or what about using the likeness of a child on the body of a consenting adult for a deepfake? I that case nobody is harmed to begin with.
> Libel is a method of defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, or any communication embodied in physical form that is injurious to a person's reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a person in his/her business or profession. [1]
A pornographic deepfake is certainly a "defamation expressed by [...] picture [...] that is injurious to a person's reputation" insofar as it creates a false impression about the person which is detrimental to their reputation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/arhzub/pornstars_pe...
edit: not trying to be snarky, there are some good links above the fold.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/interactives/global-moral...
The Czech Republic is the country most accepting of premarital sex with a 67% acceptance rate.
Simultaneously these porn companies are making exorbitant amounts of money from obviously illegal content. Something needs to be done but at the same time I worry this could be a political opportunity for a conservative to push forward an internet censorship bill.
People have not seen the Emma Watson porn, and those that have can probably read the word deepfake in the title. My guess is between 5% and 20% of the people who have seen it, and found it through searching for Emma Watson, rather than Emma Watson Deepfake believe that they have seen actual Emma Watson in porn.
But ultimately, you said that you didn't believe that it was irresponsible to assert that deepfakes will society more skeptical of video. That is your claim. I pose that deepfakes can easily be used to produce videos which are closer to what their audiences expect than reality, and as a result they will likely be less suspicious of what they see.
Even if factually deepfakes don’t substantially differ from impersonations, on a moral level they should not be tolerated, especially for grass roots female politicians.
Thanks for the Paylin reference
I confess I hadn't considered that angle :D
Photoshop made a lot of stuff accessible that previously wasn't.
In a few decades, we'll merely tell the computers what we want to see and they'll make it for us.
In fifty, they'll infer what we want and dynamically adjust.
In a hundred years, all reality will be constructed.
The trend is bigger and more important than the fear.
We can choose to embrace this change or take measures to make it less trivial.
That society ignored faked Britney Spears nudes in 1997 but complains about deep fakes today is no more inconsistent than someone who likes St Patrick's Day parades complaining when his neighbour turns his home into a 24-hour bagpipe practice centre.
Reddit would demonstrate otherwise. As would Burning Man, nude beaches, and any number of other locations where nudity is allowed/expected.