What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court
wired.com
wired.com
I believe the person used was selected because she sounded like Scarlett. If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ?
I have heard ads with people sounding like various US Presidents over the years, could doing that be illegal ?
Looks like the appellate court came to the same conclusion though, a famous person's voice is distinctive to their identity and intentionally imitating it is a type of false association claim.
It continues to baffle me that people formulate this issue as it just being about the similar voices as opposed to OpenAI's efforts to capitalize on ScarJo's likeness by making explicit references to ScarJo and her work, in combination with using a similar voice.
Obviously, it is not against the law to have a similar voice as someone. Obviously, it is against the law to capitalize upon another person's likeness without their permission. I don't understand why people pretend it's hard to distinguish between the two categories, it's not.
This seems similar to MikeRoweSoft.com[1] which was ultimately settled instead of being tested in court.
Maybe closer, does this line of thinking mean that the twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson[2] couldn't have distinct professional acting careers without one another's explicit permission because of their similarity (capitalized on for Full House) as one would necessarily infringe on the likeness of the other? That seems like a bridge too far.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen
What line of thinking? Right of publicity laws are not new. If one of the twins purported to be the other, yes, why wouldn't the other twin have a claim? What is controversial about that?
I agree that attribution is key.
Since identical twins are often confused, the issue resolves itself with credit. But absent some attribution or credit, it seems like there would be a similar problem in the case of twins. This seems like why credits in works of entertainment are particularly important.
I'm just left wondering if OpenAI discloses who provided the voice and that person isn't prohibited from entering the marketplace of "voice work" (which would seem unfair?) then it seems like this would fizzle out?
ScarJo obviously doesn't care about the individual voice actress, the voice actress would not have sufficient money to cover any damages ScarJo would allege, especially in comparison to a well-capitalized company like OpenAI. Let's use our heads for a second.
Did OpenAI want to use a similar voice to Scarlett Johansson's specifically because it's her, and they want to capitalize off of her fame or her personhood specifically?
Or did OpenAI want to use a voice that sounds pleasant and appealing and as it so happens Scarlett Johansson has just such a voice and used such a voice in a famous movie about a talking AI?
In other words, if Scarlett Johansson had a different voice, perhaps even an unappealing one, would they still have used it because it's something particular about her fame and character they wanted to leverage, or did they use a similar sounding voice to hers because of the technical qualities of that voice that she happens to have and which has been demonstrated by her to be effective.
There are many other potential scenarios that one can argue are relevant to this case, and ultimately my point is that this case isn't obvious unless you come to it with an opinion already made up and have failed to appreciate the numerous points of view.
Not what you meant, but: No, of course not, because then Johansson wouldn't have been in Her.
According to your argument, Scarlett Johansson was not cast in Her because something about her personhood would draw audiences to the movie, or something about her personality and character was being leveraged, but rather that her voice has some nice technical properties that made it a suitable choice for the movie.
In that case, the argument is less strong that OpenAI is infringing on Scarlett's personality rights, and more the case that they liked the properties and qualities that her voice has, and when she specifically turned down the offer to lend her voice to OpenAI, OpenAI found someone else who had similar properties and qualities as a replacement.
I wasn't making one.
This really has nothing to do with how women are treated.
Or if I sound like a famous singer, should I not be allowed to sing for profit?
What if my paintings have a similar style to a famous painter, should I not be allowed to paint for a living?
When it comes to works of art, if you tell the buyers/viewers it's yours you are fine, but if you paint a copy of a famous painting and claim it to be the original one, you are a criminal.
Can the movie studio that produced Her claim copyright over Samantha's voice? If they release "Her 2" without Scarlett Johansson, could the movie studio hire someone who sounds like Scarlett to play Samantha's character?
I don't think this case is as simple as people make it out to be. Even Sam Altman's tweet: "Her", seems to confirm they took inspiration from the movie Her, so is it wrong to hire a voice actor that sounds like the character in the movie? If Sam had tweeted, "Scarlett", then it would be very different.
And pity every other upcoming actor who looks/sounds vaguely similar to an existing famous person. Shall they be gagged, the very sound of their voice owned by someone else?
from the article: "It doesn’t matter whether a person’s actual voice is used in an imitation or not, Rothman says, only whether that audio confuses listeners"
Do you have non-layman knowledge about these kinds of claims?
OpenAI will try and claim fair use, but I don't think they'll succeed.
This isn't the case here.
If you want analogies it's like creating a Ferrari body, putting it around a cheap car and trying to sell it.
A proud tradition?
If everyone deliberately starts using a voice 'like' Johansson's, or the image 'like' Johansson's, that would steal the bread from her table.
I don't know if there are laws/cases covering 'lookalikes' but it's kinda like that.
The question implies that you believe a professional voice actor has a single voice they can use. That is a silly thing to believe.
People can sound alike or even identical.
> That is a silly thing to believe.
I think it's silly to believe that celebrities should own voices
Nobody believes that you gave a feminine voice to an AI and nobody involved considered the similarities to the most famous feminine AI character, especially when you started out by trying to hire the same actress to do the voice.
IF: OpenAI had advertised SJ as being a voice, had sold the plus subscription with that voice as a benefit, and had instructed talent scouting and internal editors to ‘copy her’ then this would be open and shut. We know for sure the first part did not happen: if there’s a case then discovery will tell us the second part.
If on the other hand they chose the voice for sky because they liked the actors natural voice, whether or not it was because they were reminded of SJ that is anything but open and shut- in fact it seems very difficult to me; a judge must determine that another actor cannot work at all, even if she makes no attempt to sound alike, sell as SJ, all through a platform that shows undeniable value regardless of voice. Guys, SJ is beautiful and likable. But this is a big ask of a credible federal judge.
As to money, I’m also mystified why they can’t ink a deal like: the largest single film voice acting payment is roughly $15mm. Let’s do a deal where we use your actual voice (which I would say is obviously different than sky) and rev share 50/50 with you on premium purchases, 50mm guaranteed year one.
It seems to me like this would open up the best possible world where people can have gpt4o talk with the voice of whatever actor that’s licensed, and these actors have a new distribution vehicle that’s valuable. Again SJ may not want to license for whatever reason she chooses, but I bet that OpenAI didn’t make a serious rev share offer, and I think they should.
For the second part, you're assuming that they just didn't offer enough money. It's very likely instead that SJ didn't want to associate her brand with this business.
It's quite likely that SJ would suffer from severe reputational damage from being the literal voice of AI.
The sky voice has been part of the app since the launch, it was not newly launched for GPT4o.
You're missing a key step in your logic chain: That they pulled the voice when SJ made a public complaint does not imply that they thought it was a soundalike, or that they documented they were making a soundalike, or that a soundalike is wrong, or that they thought they were doing something wrong when they hired the Sky voice actor. It just means that they pulled the Sky voice on public request from SJ.
That, combined with SJ reports that she turned down a licensing deal, and WaPo reporting that the Sky voice actor sounds like the voice delivered in ChatGPT, are pretty much the only facts we have right now.
As to SJ brand decisions -- maybe. I would bet the offer was low / not discussed, instead of it being substantial. But, that is also speculation.
the legal system may be asked to consider if a press release for a new model counts as advertising, and if implying a connection to Her was a significant part of said advertisement.
the fact that it does not cost money does not make it legal. PETA can't go around running its mouth saying "Beyonce supports PETA and banning pets" when she's said no such thing.
Two people can naturally have a very similar voice and it would be pretty absurd to have someone not allowed to use their own voice.
It isn’t absurd for someone in a specific industry to have their voice protected within that trade.
In 1988, Midler v. Ford Motor Co was decided in favor of Bette Midler after Ford hired an impersonator for their commercials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
Tom Waits won a lawsuit against Frito Lay for a radio commercial where they hired a impersonator. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...
However, I do not agree that one should be able to stamp out use of any voice one person deems 'too similar' from plying that trade. This would be pretty surprising; it raises numerous questions of fair play, who decides, whether the courts wish to be in the position of making these determinations, and ultimately, I think the balance of equity is against making a broad decision like this, full stop. People have the right to work, and especially have the right to work in a fair environment where they are not unduly taking advantage of other's rights and trademarks.
Marilyn Monroe did not have rights to ban women from blonde curls, or beauty marks, Bettie Page did not have the ability to stop numerous lookalikes from selling pinup photos; this is the same situation.
Agreed that an endorsement, express or implied, is usually something the endorser has rights over.
So, in this case, from your perspective, you'd need to prove that people understood such an endorsement to have happened, and if you want damages, that it benefitted the company and/or harmed the endorser.
On these terms, the facts we know don't seem terrible for OpenAI - they negotiated in good faith for the endorsement, and when she went public / gave a final 'no' they pulled the voice, which apparently was not created by a copycat voice actor, but instead by another woman that SJ claims sounds identical to her. OpenAI has not summarily fallen over or gone bankrupt, in fact, the app that caused controversy hasn't launched yet.
And of course there can be impersonators, but there is a world of difference between hiring an impersonator for the express purpose of impersonating where everyone knows that is the case, vs. hiring an impersonator to imply commercial endorsement from the original person.
A commercial endorsement does not require that it be the sole form of endorsement or that it even be financially positive. Ford was running more than one ad campaign when Bette Midler sued and won, and Frito Lay was in a similar boat with Tom Waits.
If it can be shown in court that Sky is an impersonation and that SJ is ruled to have endorsed whether through tweets from Sam, or the Sky voice, and that she suffered some damage or that OpenAI benefited in some way before taking it down, then I think she would likely win some money in damages. Unless all those are true, it seems tough to get more than she already got -- a quick removal of the voice.
Few people mention the existing Sky voice actor (whose agent has held her name for safety concerns) is harmed here, quite substantially, by the idea that SJ could control her own performance. At any rate, my point at the top of all this is just that this is not 'open and shut' and I'm not even sure OpenAI has been more than 'aggressive' so far in its launch; we might found out they were, but I don't think the facts on the ground show more than that right now.
Anyone signing up to your revenue sharing scheme is going to be all over the internet saying the most vile things imaginable.
Other lawyers see OpenAI's behavior as so manifestly goofy they suspect the whole scandal might be a deliberate stunt..."
It seems the people promoting "artificial intelligence" are not themselves intelligent. Funny coincidence.
This "case" was essentially resolved immediately and seemingly without major damage to either party. But people are absolutely chomping at the bit to have this be some kind of court-case, even if such a case would be long, expensive, and likely with two losers and zero winners.
If people want to discuss some hypothetical court-case go at it, but the chance of this actually going anywhere is low. I just feel like this is filling some "AI news" void.
These systems learn. Learning is legal and protected. If we could sue the people who quote books they don't own, reference TV shows they don't have a current and valid license to stream, where do we draw the line? If I can sue a computer for learning from the world, or the teacher that gave it material, why can't I sue a church for teaching nonsense? Infact, why doesn't OpenAI just become a formal religion or something?
All of this is 1.) going nowhere 2.) pointless overall 3.) a waste of energy 4.) preventing scientific progress