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Comment by jorvi | Hacker News Reader

> In the end, someone probably felt like it's a bit too dodgy as it resemblance was uncanny

What if it wasn’t a computer voice model but rather a real-life voice actress that you could pay a few cents to try to imitate Scarlett Johansson’s voice as best as she could?

That’s effectively what’s happening here, and it isn’t illegal.

It guess it also leads to the bigger question: do celebrities own their particular frequency range? Is no one allowed to publicly sound like them? Feels like the AACS DVD encryption key controversy all-over again.

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>guess it also leads to the bigger question

people are allowed to sound like other people. But if you go to actor 1 and say we want to use your voice for our product, and then they say no, and then you go to actor 2 and tell them I want you to sound like actor 1 for our product, and then you release a statement hey you know that popular movie by actor 1 that just used their voice in a context extremely reminiscent of our product?!? Well, listen to what we got: (actor 2 voice presented)

Then you may run into legal problems.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

on edit: assuming that reports I am reading that the actress used for the voicework claimed not to have been instructed to sound like Her vocal work it sounds like it is probably not likely that a suit would be successful.

The other actress wasn't the only one involved in the production; she provided input but OpenAI building a voice model would involve a lot of data and input. They had to have a model of her ready to go when they asked her for permission immediately before launching; possibly they had one that had been built from her, and another legal-approved that they had converged to be close to the first one but that didn't include her as a direct source.

> What if it wasn’t a computer voice model but rather a real-life voice actress that you could pay a few cents to try to imitate Scarlett Johansson’s voice as best as she could?

> That’s effectively what’s happening here, and it isn’t illegal.

Profiting from someone else's likeness is illegal.

Right of publicity. Profiting of their image without their permission will get you sued. Even if you use an impersonator. If there is a chance the public will connect it with them, you are probably screwed.

e.g.

Vanna White vs Samsung - https://w.wiki/AAUR

Crispin Glover Back to the Future 2 lawsuit - https://w.wiki/AAUT#Back_to_the_Future_Part_II_lawsuit

> That’s effectively what’s happening here, and it isn’t illegal.

It is more complicated than that. Check out Midler v. Ford Motor Co, or Waits V. Frito Lay.

Ford hired impersonators, she's not an impersonator, that's her real voice.

She's allowed to be a voice actor using her real voice.

Your can point to the "Her" tweet, but it's a pretty flimsy argument.

Whether the actor was an impersonator or not is still up to debate. I can see an argument being made when you consider the entire context.

I don't see any argument considering the entire context, care to explain?

This is correct, and is very different from both the Midler and Waits cases. The courts are never going to tell a voice actor she can't use her real voice because she sounds too much like a famous person.

And besides, it sounds more like Rashida Jones anyway. It's clearly not an impersonation.

They are unlikely to tell the voice actor anything, since OpenAI is the problematic party here.

> Your can point to the "Her" tweet, but it's a pretty flimsy argument.

I'm not making arguments which are not already explicitly written in my post.

My argument is simple: jorvi commented that you can hire "a real-life voice actress" to "try to imitate Scarlett Johansson’s voice as best as she could", and that is not illegal.

I said that the legality of that is more complicated. What jorvi describes might or might not be illegal based on various factors. And I pointed them towards the two references to support my argument.

I explicitly didn't say in that comment anything about the OpenAI/ScarJo case. You are reacting as if you think that I have some opinion about it. You are wrong, and it would be better if you would not try to guess my state of mind. If I have some opinion about something you will know because I will explicitly state it.

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