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Comment by iris2004 | Hacker News Reader

iris2004

It's a neat demo. I don't know how I feed about cloning the voice of a living person, even a 'public' figure like a presenter. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually becomes illegal, although it'll likely be as difficult to enforce as normal casual copyright infringement.

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I expect the existing laws will be extended. I had a colleague tell me about looking into how much Morgan freeman wanted for a 15s commercial ($$$$$$). The alternative he used was a “sound alike” voice actor, for which Morgan Freeman received royalties to the tune of $$$$$.

Why would Morgan Freeman be entitled to royalties for a commercial where the voice over sounded similar to his voice... unless he actually sold the rights to represent him with a vocal likeness in the commercial (AKA he didn't do the voice over, but the commercial was able to claim the voice over was by Morgan Freemen, or that it represented Morgan Freeman's opinions... like when a book by a celebrity is actually written by someone else)

I don't get this either, and would be very interested in a clear explanation.

yeah at least in the US you are fine as long as you don't claim the voice is a certain person.

Gathering, retaining, using individual voice recordings for business purposes may be regulated, though. Already is in places, even if enforcement and precedence is lacking.

So there'd be no legal way to produce or share the model generating such a voice or its output.

You can't use a Tom Waits (or Morgan Freeman) sound-a-like because you're profiting off their work and likeness. Unless the celeb sells a licensed sound-a-like.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/when-tom-waits-sued-doritos/

What if my voice sounded like Tom Waits or Morgan Freeman and I did commercials? It doesn't and I don't I'm just curious how this makes sense. Is it just if the voice is advertised to sound like him?

Yes you would owe them money. This why I'm against artists trying to chokehold the AI.

I don't think with the current copyright system you would owe another artist money when recording a commercial just because your voice happens to sound like theirs. But with AI perhaps it's "fair" (given the assumption that there's any fairness to copyright in the first place) to expect a creator to provide some kind of compensation to the source material that their AI was trained on.

Case in point, this bot was clearly trained on David Attenborough samples, perhaps it can't be used commercially without purchasing some rights to the man's likeness.

Picasso is widely quoted as having said that “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” https://lifehacker.com/an-artist-explains-what-great-artists...

There is a significant difference between "stealing" artistic ideas, and impersonating individual humans.

How folks can think it's reasonable to impersonate Morgan Freeman and use his voice to sell, for example, crypto crap. It's gross and should absolutely be illegal.

Well Picasso wasn’t much of a legislator, and I don’t think his point was that all artistic theft is justifiable to begin with.

What would happen if a voic was trained on Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, George Clooney and tuned to not sound like any one individual but have the characteristics we find appealing. Could that be used for its own copyright claim?

I believe the answer is almost certainly yes under current law.

Whenever the topic of copying material for model training purposes arises on hn, however, a number of folks seem convinced such use falls under the rubric of “transformative” and will be considered fair use.

Do you just believe this or was this tested in court yet? I haven't been following the various lawsuits on this issue closely but I had thought that, so far, they were leaning towards fair use.

I believe it, and I don’t think it’s been significantly tested.

It’s hard to see how mixing (copying!) a bunch of books into a computer algorithm to produce (commercially!) content that might itself easily be incorporated into a book in the same market could possibly be fair use.

> I don't think with the current copyright system you would owe another artist money when recording a commercial just because your voice happens to sound like theirs

No, its a right of publicity/right of personality issue, not a copyright issue. While that's not a federal law issue in the US, its an issue in some US jurisdictions, and its a national law issue in a number of non-US jurisdictions.

The mistake is thinking “would not owe money under the current copyright regime” means “would not owe money”: there are more laws in the world than just copyright law.

I guess you wouls have the chance to argue about it in court, if someone came after you.

> The agency came back to Frito-Lay with a parody song inspired by Tom Wait’s ‘Step Right Up’, featuring the same Carni hollerings as the Small Change track

If you did straight-up parodies of their songs, yes.

Sounds like a similar situation to someone named Mike Rowe starting a software company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft

Sounding like someone isn't just having the same timbre of voice, it's cadence, accent, diction (both definitions). I'm skeptical how much two unrelated people could just happen to sound alike, especially if one of them is famous for their voice. Compare Larry David's natural speaking voice to how he speaks when impersonating Bernie Sanders. Those are two men from the same time and place and background, and there's still quite a gulf.

Now perhaps you could just happen to sound like a famous actor who isn't well known for their voice, like John krasinski or something, who does voice over ads but isn't super distinct. That would probably be fine but you're still going to have to slog through the world of voice talent auditions

In that case though (and the Bette Milder precedent), the sound-a-like was used with a song that the artist was associated with, which implied that it was the actual artist, or at least deliberately invoked their likeness in mind of the viewer.

I'm skeptical that using a narrator that happened to sound like David Attenborough or Morgan Freeman would be enough by itself to qualify for right of publicity unless it included obvious references to prior work, catch phases, or the like.

Difficult to find a Morgan Freeman sound-a-like if they're not marketing themselves as a Morgan Freeman sound-a-like. And if they are (and obtaining more customers as a result), it's easier to pay Morgan Freeman royalties than come up with persuasive arguments that selling 'voiceovers that sound like Morgan Freeman' isn't profiting from deliberately invoking his likeness...

> Difficult to find a Morgan Freeman sound-a-like if they're not marketing themselves as a Morgan Freeman sound-a-like.

How about this scenario: they publish a youtube video, then someone says in the comments: hey you sound just like morgan freeman, then the company looking for the voice performance googles for morgan freeman, finds the comment and contacts them.

So then in court the google for Morgan Freeman and the comment you sound like Morgan Freeman come out and then you owe Morgan Freeman $$$$$$$$$ because he had to go to court over it.

Think if I wanted to earn a living as a voiceover artist who happened to sound like a very famous actor I'd rather advertise my USP and pay royalties on the much higher earnings than only pick up business from companies that make hiring decisions based on random chance or YouTube comments ...

What happens if the sound alike is given away for free and there is no profit or even revenue component?

Huh, Salma Hayek was right

If your voice is the twin of a celebrity's, but you don't benefit from the likeness (for example, not being paid for voice acting where your identities could be confused), you'd probably have a strong defense if the celebrity tries to extort royalties from you.

The rest is shades of grey. For example, if you're an incredible voice imitator and plan to do shows, negotiations would be wise. Even Weird Al asked for permission when he didn't had to, legally speaking.

> Even Weird Al asked for permission when he didn't had to, legally speaking.

But Weird Al does parodies, which is fair use. He's not trying to pass off an album as being a genuine Michael Jackson album or something.

Why would Weird Al try to pass off his albums as being from the guy who stole his songs?

Weird Al's latest movie is a mess, but so surreal I keep remembering it months after watching it. It as if the UHF movie carved a niche in my brain for his weird movies.

Right of Publicity: https://higgslaw.com/celebrities-sue-over-unauthorized-use-o...

if my product doesn't imply or state that the voice is Morgan Freeman's, I don't think they really have a case? at least not based on common sense

If the voice was chosen specifically to sound like Morgan Freeman, for the purpose of making listeners think it's Morgan Freeman when they hear it, it seems reasonable for it to run afoul of Morgan Freeman's right to publicity.

I owe nothing to Morgan Freeman just because I sound like him, unless I'm intentionally misleading listeners by advertising his name or implying as much

If they can reasonably argue that you're being hired because you sound like Morgan Freeman and you wouldn't get the job otherwise, then they likely have a case.

Not if "sound like Morgan Freeman" is a proxy for "have a nice-sounding voice". They could prefer people who sound like Morgan Freeman even if they are not representing to listeners that the voice is that of Morgan Freeman. Big distinction there.

> I owe nothing to Morgan Freeman just because I sound like him

What if a company chooses you as a voice artist largely on the basis that you sound like Morgan Freeman?

Is it a case of (a) they like Morgan Freeman's voice as a general preference (and therefore want someone who has a nice-sounding voice such as Morgan Freeman's for features such as how it sounds smart, deep, engaging, I don't know) or (b) they want someone who sound like Morgan Freeman to somehow represent to listeners that it's Morgan Freeman's voice?

Tell that to Einstein's family. Put an older guy with a German accent and wild white hair in a commercial, and they want paid.

Honestly, it's offensive that they can "own" a general appearance. But their lawyers manage to enforce it.

An easy workaround for this is to dress your German speaker in a Nazi uniform, now suddenly nobody wants to. be associated with them, even if you keep the unkempt white hair.

Now you're being sued for defamation though.

I could understand if the actor was actually marketed as or publicly known a soundalike.

But on the other hand, does "store brand lucky charms" have to pay a kick back to General Mills?

If it's on the shelf right next to the original, it was probably made by General Mills.

That’s what my mother said. She was wrong.

> The alternative he used was a “sound alike” voice actor, for which Morgan Freeman received royalties to the tune of $$$$$.

Was it Josh Robert Thompson, who is officially authorized? [1]

[1] https://filmschoolrejects.com/morgan-freeman-crab-in-barb-an...

I'd pay to stop hearing Morgan Freeman's voiceovers everywhere. It's way overplayed.

At least do some James Earl Jones!

My father had a friend who was a well recognised commercial voice over artist , and told me about his fees. There was a fee for doing the actual work, but a much bigger exclusivity/exposure fee designed to prevent his voice getting over used to the point where future work dried up.

The extremely obvious legal problem is, ALL simulated voices sound like some real person somewhere, it's just a matter of finding that person.

I don't see a solution to this, so I'll tend to believe the cynic's viewpoint that the final written law will be in favor of whoever has the most lawyers.

Sure. The difference is some voices, like David Attenborough or Samuel Jackson are instantly recognizable to a large audience while someone who isn't famous' voice is not.

Where to put the bar is a specific issue, but the exemplars in their category stand out as recognizable.

> I don't see a solution to this

It's actually simple. Take David Attenborough's name out of the picture.

"A generic British guy is now narrating my life" isn't as funny as implicating a known celebrity, which is where the legal issues would arise. A generic British guy isn't going to sue you.

Hell, you might even be able to get away with "A generic British guy who sounds like David Attenborough is now narrating my life."

>ALL simulated voices sound like some real person somewhere

By the same logic, all simulated faces look like some real person somewhere, but I wouldn't expect to simulate a face that looks like Brad Pitt and then use it in a TV commercial

While I agree, I also did thoroughly enjoy a recent Youtube channel that did Warhammer 40K lore in Attenborough's voice. It recently got taken down for obvious reasons.

Makes you wonder if in a few years there will be licenses available for using someone's voice for such endeavours.

I have been creating audiobooks from ebooks for a while now. I just grab an .epub and turn it into a pretty good audiobook in minutes for completely free using local models.

What do you use for the voice and the text to speech generator?

Yes please do share the models you are using

What's the state of the art in run-it-yourself TTS? I haven't seen anything that even comes close to what ElevenLabs is doing

I converted a book to audiobook a couple of months ago using the tts code here: https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS

Wasn't as good as eleven labs, but it had enough options that I found a voice that I liked to listen to.

Personally, I don't really see a problem with it as long as it's not used deceptively. In this case, it's pretty clear that it's not really David Attenborough speaking.

Outside of that, I am not sure I'm seeing a moral or economic argument for making voice copyrightable. The usual argument about incentivizing creation doesn't apply here.

> pretty clear that it's not really David Attenborough speaking

Not sure how you came to that conclusion. The bot mimics his speaking style very precisely.

I'm pretty sure he came to that conclusion using context.

Indeed.

From the tweet and video where he explains how he did it...

I've also cloned his voice, it's trivial.

That said, it'll be interesting how the legal side of this shakes out. Does one own their likeness and voice? Who decides what that is? There are plenty of voice actors that can do a great Morgan Freedman or trump. How is that different?

Cloning the voice of a dead person, to me, feels even icky-er. Indigenous Australians would probably feel the same, too, considering they avoid contact with pictures or recordings of deceased people.

> I don't know how I feed about cloning the voice of a living person,

I would like to hear it generate Kevin Conroy (R.I.P.) vocals for Christopher Nolan's Batman movies.

If human vocal impersonation is legal (and they are damn convincing at times) so should be machine.

Shouldn't be illegal, but I could understand it if we see laws that require explicit disclosure when voices of living people are simulated. At first glance that seems like the right compromise.

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