What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

https://www.wired.com/story/scarlett-johansson-v-openai-could-look-like-in-court/

by UUjiasuqi • 2 years ago

33 71 2 years ago

wired.com

ml-anon3• 2 years ago

This going to court will be the best outcome possible for society.

jmclnx• 2 years ago

If it goes to court, it will be an interesting case and may have big ramifications.

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 ?

tensor• 2 years ago

Surely there must be precedence here. This can't be the first time people hired sound-a-like voice actors for something.

delecti• 2 years ago

Yes, and a case with a lot of similarity too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

freejazz6• 2 years ago

If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ?

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.

vessenes8• 2 years ago

Just to be clear here, which of these two circumstances do you believe is at play in the johannsen v OpenAI dispute?

opello3• 2 years ago

Obviously, it is against the law to capitalize upon another person's likeness without their permission.

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

amanaplanacanal• 2 years ago

“Obviously” isn’t really a legal argument, though.

Maxatar2• 2 years ago

Because it's not obvious and just using that word over and over again doesn't make it true.

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.

surfingdino3• 2 years ago

Because women's objections are ignored and women are expected to provide more proof than men. Scarlett Johansson is the third woman so far who made it clear that she is not happy with Altman's/OpenAI's conduct, but they all are being asked to provide more proof of harm done. In case you missed it--his sister made serious allegations and was ignored; then a female board member went public with her reasons for resigning and people say its sour grapes; and now Scarlett Johansson is objecting to Altman suggesting that it was her voice even after he was told that she is not interested in working with OpenAI.

bgentry2• 2 years ago

What if I look like a famous actor/actress or model? Should I not be allowed to act or model professionally?

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?

telesilla• 2 years ago

Actors use stage names all the time because the actors union doesn't allow duplicate names. Emma Stone's birthname for example is Emily Stone, who is another actor. Actors and musicians are also known to seek as much uniqueness as possible to be able to trade on that uniqueness. If you were a talented singer or painter you'd have trained early on to develop your own distinct voice or style, it's how the music and art schools work.

surfingdino3• 2 years ago

If you impersonate another actor for profit claiming to be him/her you may be facing legal action. There is a difference in selling yourself as "Scarlett Johansson" vs. "A Scarlett Johansson impersonator" vs. your own name/stage name. If it's covert and deceiving, you are in trouble, if it is overt, you are fine and that's why they world has so many Elvis impersonators. Although I see a new market opening for Kate Moss impersonators https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40498668

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.

sandworm1012• 2 years ago

No. Contrary to layperson belief, there is little new in deepfakes. People have been faking the image of celebs for many years decades (SNL) and faking their personality even further (Hustler v Falwell, Lohan v GTA). The porn industry has an entire genre dedicated to parodies of famous people and famous situations. And there are the professional celeb lookalikes. Every historical film involves someone trying to mimic a real person. Imagine if Winston Churchill's estate started going after every actor who has ever used "his" accent without permission. All of those are situations where the mimicry was done blatantly and openly. This is a case where the mimicry is contested at best. The only hope would be to somehow prove literal copying, her voice fed into that software.

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?

freejazz6• 2 years ago

Is literal copying a necessary element for a right of publicity claim? I don't think so, but I don't litigate them. I would think that OpenAI's conduct in referencing ScarJo and her body of work in relation to the voice would allow for a reasonable inference that they intended the public to believe it was ScarJo's voice, and not that of a similarly sounding voice actor?

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?

bryanlarsen• 2 years ago

That's fair use. Fair use is limited to commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship.

OpenAI will try and claim fair use, but I don't think they'll succeed.

threeseed• 2 years ago

Parody is considered fair use because the public knows that it isn't the celebrity.

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.

HenryBemis• 2 years ago

I will assume that imitating Reagan to sell X products (that are not insulting the to the memory of Reagan) would be "ok". But Reagan is dead, and I don't feel that using a voice similar to his (or Clinton's who's still alive) removes bread from their table.

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.

pyeri• 2 years ago

I think it might go the Google vs Oracle way. The courts might do the right and ethical thing (Google wins) but the basis will be a specific workaround (fair use of APIs) instead of something beneficial for society as a whole (APIs can't be copyrighted).

justin66• 2 years ago

If guilty, will it be illegal for people sounding like famous people get voice work ?

The question implies that you believe a professional voice actor has a single voice they can use. That is a silly thing to believe.

anonymousab• 2 years ago

What if it was their natural voice and cadence?

People can sound alike or even identical.

fxd123• 2 years ago

OpenAI's claim is that they used the voice actors' natural voice

That is a silly thing to believe.

I think it's silly to believe that celebrities should own voices

Someone1234• 2 years ago

As far as I know, nobody has filed any cases in court, yet I see multiple articles and misstatements claiming otherwise which is odd.

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.

vessenes8• 2 years ago

I’m mystified as to two things here: first that people feel this is ‘open and shut’ in Ms Johannsen’s favor, and second that this hasn’t been settled economically.

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.

mateus1• 2 years ago

It’s not just a matter of the voice being a 1:1 match with Johansenns’s or that it used it as an input to build the model. What is definitive is that Open AI intently based this on the film Her as per docs and tweets && they used her voice similarity after being declined more than once.

tsimionescu2• 2 years ago

For the first part, you're forgetting the "her" tweet, and the attempts of getting SJ to sell them her voice as recently as two days before they launched her sound-alike. And we know they thought it's a soundalike because they immediately changed it once the scandal started.

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.

michaelbuckbee• 2 years ago

To add on to your comment, in the arts and creative space there are substantial levels of opposition to AI as it's perceived as a job killer and maybe at some level perverse or akin to an automated plagiarism system that steals their intellectual property (this is complicated and not my personal take, but I see where they're coming from).

It's quite likely that SJ would suffer from severe reputational damage from being the literal voice of AI.

vessenes8• 2 years ago

I'm not forgetting "Her", and I think it's in-bounds to say a company is inspired by / referencing a film in PR -- I can list quite a few SV startups that directly tie their DNA to an inspiring book or film, and heretofore that's generally not considered objectionable. (For instance, Paypal / Cryptonomicon).

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.

bobthepanda4• 2 years ago

commercial benefit for copyright is not limited to literally selling things but also covers ads and publicity.

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.

williamcotton• 2 years ago

A voice seems to be covered by trademark as opposed to copyright.

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.

vessenes8• 2 years ago

So, to be clear, I think you could launch a company that was like "It's 100% exactly as good as the movie Her. Seen the movie Her? This is like that AI. You can download it here", and not legally owe a penny. The concept of the AI in Her is not something that the makers of the film own, and companies are inspired by creative works of all sorts all the time when they make things. This is considered good in American business law.

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.

opello3• 2 years ago

On the sound alike front it seems like attribution must resolve this since it can't possibly be reasonable to deny access to the marketplace of voice work because someone else that you sound like "got there first"?

vessenes8• 2 years ago

Exactly.

ml-anon3• 2 years ago

Why the fuck would one of the most famous people on the planet who is already phenomenally wealthy want to be the voice of a company that has already maligned her for an application that people are already demonstrating the use of to have sexually explicit conversations.

Anyone signing up to your revenue sharing scheme is going to be all over the internet saying the most vile things imaginable.

bsimpson• 2 years ago

It's interesting to see Sam Altman on the record claiming this was a complete accident the same week that it came out that he got fired from OpenAI last year for having a pattern of handwaving "misunderstandings" when he got caught on the wrong side of the truth.

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.

frabjoused• 2 years ago

This week might be the bit flip on his reputation. Starting to see defense comments getting downvoted, when earlier critical comments would get downvoted. Once you pass that 50% opinion it's pretty hard to reverse.

soperj• 2 years ago

you'd need a long standing campaign ala Bill Gates from the 2000s. It seems like the truth shines through eventually though.

jmugan2• 2 years ago

Yeah, I don't get this at all. I don't have a donkey in this fight, but it seems to me that 1. They wanted to build the experience from the movie Her. 2. They wanted to use Johansson's voice because that would be a cool tie-in. 3. Johansson said no, so they went with somebody else. 4. End of story.

theyinwhy• 2 years ago

4. They did the childish move to let someone impersonate her 5. The lawyers told them two days before release that this is a bad idea and they should get Johansson's approval 6. They did not and did the other childish move to release it nevertheless

jmugan2• 2 years ago

To me, they don't sound the same. Certainly both flirty and fun; I can't imagine getting much work done with an assistant that chatty.

kelsey98765431• 2 years ago

Funny how the ownership class is so strongly against technology that makes their "ownership" of something as silly as a voice at risk of losing its return on investment they will go to battle over this. This shows weakness in human voice talent, just look at this massive liability using humans introduces. Sorry honey, just because you think s voice sounds like you doesn't give you the right to throw a fit. Seems like shes salty that she didn't take their offer because when they said honestly it's fine we can do it without you, she didn't believe them. Now when they have done just as high quality of a voice without her she cannot grasp the fact they just didn't need her at all and her only value is basically vendor lock in, which is now failing. The people fighting this think a genie can go back in a bottle or something, or that you can leverage being "important" to claim the technology is unfair. NYT, this random actress, nobody cares. This is at the level of a national security breakthrough in terms of significance, trying to insert yourself into the middle of it after the fact to get the piece of the pie you already rejected just looks bad. I imagine we see more and more of these cases falling apart soon, can I sue my boss for reading my github page and getting ideas from it? Can I sue my teacher for reading harry potter to me? Can I sue youtube for hosting videos of people doing impersonations of obama?

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

ml-anon3• 2 years ago

Jfc. You’re raging about the “ownership” class as if OpenAI isn’t a vassal of the largest corporation on the planet.

tedunangst• 2 years ago

Is there any particular reason we need to speculate instead of simply letting the case happen and seeing what it looks like? This is basically fanfic masquerading as reporting? I assume the parties involved will not be forming their legal strategy by reading wired.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 years ago

""It was a boneheaded move," says David Herlihy, a copyright lawyer and music industry professor at Northeastern University. "A miscalculation."

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.

What Scarlett Johansson vs. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court

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