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Comment by noslenwerdna | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this discussion a lot, but what about when they hire a sound-a-like voice actor for a cartoon after a popular movie?

Case in point, Owen Wilson was the voice of the main character in the Cars movie, but they got a different voice actor for some of the cartoons who sounded similar. Same thing for the ghostbuster cartoon after the movie was a big success in the 80s.

Why is that ok?

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I work in animation. There are two reasons this is okay. One, the company owns the rights to the character lightning McQueen and they own the performance of the character by way of their contract with the actor. This probably makes more sense when the specific voice performance is sounds more “charactery” and less like the actors speaking voice but the same principle applies.

Additionally there is usually a provision explicitly allowing for this in the contract with the initial voice actor. Depending on the voice actor’s leverage, they can negotiate for things like approval over the replacement, right of first refusal to voice the character or payment when a sound-a-like is used.

The fact the character sounds exactly like Owen Wilson himself is somewhat incidental though understandably makes this confusing. What they couldn’t do in this case is have an Owen Wilson soundalike voice a DIFFERENT Disney character. They only own Owen Wilson’s voice as it pertains to portraying the character Lightning McQueen.

In the OpenAI situation and Frito Lay there is no initial contract granting any rights to a voice performance.

OpenAI didn't want their voice to sound like Scarlett Johansson, they wanted it to sound like Samantha from Her. Does Warner Brothers have a right to AI voices that sound like Scarlett Johansson? Shouldn't it be them suing?

What if she wasn't doing her own voice? Many actors have voiced characters not in their own voice over the years. Does Elmo's original voice actor own Elmo's voice or is it whoever owns Sesame Street?

I'm not necessarily making any assertions, I'm genuinely asking cause I don't know what kind of precedent is here. Though personally I'm not convinced of the case against OpenAI, other than bad optics from Altman.

> OpenAI didn't want their voice to sound like Scarlett Johansson, they wanted it to sound like Samantha from Her

That is likely the case they would try to make if they went to court. But this likely will be settled out of court if there's anything there

OpenAI trying to contract Scarlett twice would likely put a big damper on the "We didn't want it to sound like her, we wanted it to sound like the character" too

It's definitely not cut and dry

The “smoking gun” is they (allegedly) reached out to Johansson, which shows it is her voice they were interested in. If they wanted to use the character they should have reach out to WB, but it is likely Johansson still have som say in how her act is used. A major point of contention in the recent actors strike was about to what extent studios could use ai models based on a performance.

Isn't because in Cars the character itself is the IP, not the actor? For example, if Owen Wilson started cosplaying as the Cars character and making money out of it, he could be sued.

Reminds me of an Archer bit: https://youtu.be/c9uuITbtl-g?t=2

- Oh my god, Slim Goodbody!

- No! No, this is absolutely not that trademark character. Just a unitard with the systems of the human body on it. On a guy.

- On a guy named TV's Michael Gray.

The video description is

> All credits to FX. I do not own any rights.

Appropriate

I don't know the answer, but please notice the situation you describe is quite different: in this case, a lot of parties, if not all (showrunners of the cartoon, viewers, maybe even the actors, etc.) would prefer that the character still be voiced by the original actor; but usually, the talent is so much in demand that it would be too expensive.

Corollary: what if the replacement voice isn't actually a voice actor but an AI?

I keep seeing this point, in various forms, being regurgitated. The answer is: because it is OK with Owen Wilson is why. And likely stipulated in contract.

Probably part of the contract with Wilson. Actors usually don’t own the characters they play and producers have the right to recast.

I would imagine like everything in Hollywood it's just "because the contract says it's okay"

Work for hire vs. work owned by artist

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