Does "Sky" sound like ScarJo? 👨💻 Remove personal information off the web with Incogni with code LEGALEAGLE legaleagle.link/incogni ⚖ Get a great lawyer, fast! legaleagle.link/eagleteam
She said her friends and some media outlets said they couldn't tell the difference, but I argue that her friends are more likely to say yes no matter what, to be supportive of her, and media outlets have more to gain in terms of clicks and views by going with the most divisive answer, that they sound identical. Her voice honestly doesn't sound like it, it only does in terms of both voices are nice voices, female, and helpful sounding, which ChatGPT has been trained to be helpful for sometime now, and being helpful isn't copyrightable, but you can expect someone who is helpful to have a helpful sounding voice.
Sounds similar, but not the same. How unique are voices though? I work with 2 people that sound identical. I heard many people that just like someone else I know. Voice doppelgangers are pretty common.
As a European it is wild that they can have "should be non union" as a requirement for a job. In Europe it is considered sensitive personal data and it is illegal to treat employees differently based on union membership.
The union was on strike at the time, so it seems more like shorthand for ‘willing and able to work’. Eg, they could be in the union but willing to break union rules.
@@peter65zzfdfh Like the Alito flag, the timeline doesn't match. OpenAI issued a casting call for non-union last May, the actress was hired in June. The SAG-AFTRA strike was between July 14 and November 9, 2023.
I believe this was in the middle of the strike so it was that or just non American voices. But yes obviously when they’re paying royalties on potentially trillions of impressions they wanted a low base rate, I imagine a union member would be entitled to more than the GDP of the world for that role.
Because union actors would ask for residuals, and they would prefer not to pay forever to read some stock phrases and a dictionary to be stitched into code later. Who’s the voice for Alexa, and how much do they get paid a month for a few days/weeks work a decade ago?
@@peter65zzfdfh They chose to hire non-union. There was no strike at the time that all this went down. OpenAI issued a casting call for non-union last May, the actress was hired in June. The SAG-AFTRA strike was between July 14 and November 9, 2023. This was not done because they didn't have an alternative. They had the choice and decided to be cheap and take advantage.
No. We just had a strike over this. "Oh, you're non-union? Sign this. Get paid a few bucks while we use your vocal likeness without royalties til the end of time." Not too different from what you get when you do porn.
@@jonahfalcon1970the actress was given an agreement that included royalties while it was being used. Royalties she’s missing out on due to the reaction of a wealthy actress.
@@ChristophBrinkmann Not only that, but if they're doing this sort of thing to someone like ScarJo, imagine what they're doing to actors and other creatives we *haven't* heard of.
@@peter65zzfdfh you're taking several leaps of logic here, which include "abusive contracts are never a thing", "i personally know the involved parties and can assure what was written on that contract down to the royalties clause", plus assuming somehow the situation would play perfectly how you've imagined in your head. It's not and johansson is just protecting her image as she should. Take several seats.
As an FYI incogni is also difficult to cancel. You must open a support ticket and undergo multiple questions and offers prior to them allowing you to cancel their service. It's a predatory tactic and I would reconsider your relationship with them
Amazon does the same. I canceled prime, so they just charged the PayPal account without confirmation or noice. Found out from my bank statement. It’s easy to over look 15$ for most people. However, living paycheck to paycheck means I scrutinize every transaction, and was able to catch this.
Right but see how creepily accurate it was - with, what, presumably just a couple hours of training. Give it a years' training on someone and it will be indistinguishable from a real person. Wars can start over this. People will go to prison over this. Society will collapse because of this. Well done humanity.
@@sarcasticstartrek7719 Thankfully, the technology that detects fakes has historically advanced faster than the technology that creates them. That's not to say that can't change though.
@@thefaithlessheathen the issue is though, that yes, you can reply to a post or video saying "that's fake and this data proves it" but it's too late by then. The lie is spread. And it's bad enough now when people literally just make up invented quotes to prove them wrong - when there's a video to the human eye that is undetectable, no about of "aKsHuaLly its fake" will convince anyone who doesn't want to be. This is a very, VERY dangerous time.
yeah so pathetic. they probably never wanted to pay scarlett anyway. they wanted to to pay someone $100 one time so they can steal their likliness for decades and make millions from it.
@@kingace6186 "Also job discrimination based on unionization should become illegal." You're not wrong... but don't expect anybody else to fix this. If you really, truly believe that, then be the change you want to see - run for some kind of elected office; local, state, or even national-level. I believe in you.
Europe has had a tangential issue to this for decades: typically the same voice actor is hired to dub.the same actor in all of their roles. So one woman always does ScarJo, and viewers learn to associate the two. The voice actors are then hired to do radio spots commercial voice-overs, implicitly giving the impression that the ScarJo herself is endorsing the product.
I don't know what the rules are in Europe. But in the US, you can make ridiculous false statements in commercials and other things as long as "no reasonable person would believe it". I bring this up because it could be somewhat of a similar concept--how many people don't know what dubbing is and thus confuse dub actor/actress with the actor/actress on screen? Would those who are thus confused satisfy the "reasonable person" standard? Personally, I don't think celebrity endorsement means much in general, at most it means they aren't dead against the product they are being paid to promote. But that is on the other extreme end of the spectrum so I know my view is not the standard.
HEY!!! Adobe changed their terms and agreement on 4.2 which seems to be a blank check to content. I'm part of a company that uses their products extensively and our clients are big corporations. Their agreement seems to suggest we give them an open ended license to the content we use. I don't believe we can give rights to our clients artwork. But also this seems like anyone using Adobe products like reader for PDFs is just giving them open ended control of the data. I think lots of medical documents would be open to data theft through this agreement change. Isn't that also a HIPPA violation? I need legal eagle to look into this!
"To protect her privacy, we can't release her name." Ah, the normal thing where actresses don't want credit for their work. I thought they usually put artists in witness protection into convents where they make the choirs into world-wide sensations.
It's not only that. She's non-union, and they probably got her to sign something where she gets paid once and never ever gets any royalties from now til the end of time.
@@jonahfalcon1970the contract apparently includes royalties while the voice continues to be used. I imagine there’s a bunch of deranged fans that would be a threat to her safety if her identity was public, and potentially people that had issue with her not being in a union or working outside their rules if she was. No doubt the amount of compensation isn’t that great she can afford to hire security and deal with the media circus. And clearly she sounds nothing alike.
@@peter65zzfdfh If you got into acting to AVOID publicity, you're in the wrong business. Performing is performing. You can always opt to be Greta Garbo, but that means no more acting. And I don't believe a second she got royalties, as the entire point of not hiring union is to AVOID paying royalties. LMAO
@peter65zzfdfh you don't get more work as a performer by hiding your name. So she's either A) under an NDA, B) so ashamed of working for this company that she's just taking her paycheck uncredited, or C) not a real person.
Yeah it's one of those things that was a pretty much universally understood reference in its time. Whereas now if you were to put a "Here's Johnny" reference into a piece of media, regardless of context, it would still be universally understood to be a reference, but the vast majority would understand it to be from the film. Which makes me wonder if there'll eventually be another piece of incredibly popular media that divorces it from The Shining
@Ellie-rx3jt If one bursts in and says "Here's Johnny," it's The Shining. If they mime a golf club swing, or put an envelope to their head, it's Carson. As a Millennial, I'm too young to know this info. I'm the last Carson link. But older people do still exist, so let's not pretend teenaged culture is the only American culture and jargon.
@@Ellie-rx3jt That's actually what happened in Looney Toons as well! When Bugs Bunny calls Elmer "Nimrod" it was actually a biblical reference to a great hunter, but now most people hear the word Nimrod and think buffon
The advertisement went up a year ago when the union was on strike so they didn’t have any union options. They only reached out for a sixth voice after they had these five already. Probably to get the publicity from the overreaction to a voice that sounds nothing alike.
@@EverLearningDragon how exactly did they know when the strike would finish and how do you know not only how long it takes to integrate the natural voices with the model or when they intended for it to be released. Voices for video games are done well in advance of their release.
If they had not contacted her in the first place and straight up hired the person who became Skye (sky? idk) i'd not have enough suspicion to be cautious. Removing the voice does not help at the slightest either.
If indeed they have a valid voice actress in the background that sounds very similar to Scarlet Johansen then pulling the voice helps avoid a lawsuit and show goodwill in case a lawsuit actually does emerge. Anyway I think they just really wanted her voice but got someone that sounds similar instead, but now that she's threatening to sue they suddenly realize how it looks.
Reminder that they (allegedly) hired the voice actor for Sky long *before* they ever reached out to Johansen and never instructed her to sound like Johansen, which doesn't make it as obvious as the Midler V Ford case mentioned in the video, since the deliberate imitation there was incredibly clear cut. Not to say they couldn't still be in some kind of legal trouble, I feel like a lot of it could've been reasonably avoided had the CEO not made so many direct references to the movie 'Her' on the lead up to showing off the new voices....Very stupid move lol, just let the fans make the connection, don't make any comments that could be understood to mean you were trying to "copy" things in the movie....
lol. How brazen. Frito Lay copies Tom Waits voice for a commercial after hearing a song where Waits was mocking corny commercials. It's absolutely no surprise he wanted nothing to do with it. What a brain-dead and out of touch move by their marketing team. Marketers have sold their souls, corrupting genuine art for corporate greed. I've seen it all my life.
I mean, you could note the inherent rebellion by selling your boss a song that's making fun of shady people selling garbage and give the creative side of the house a knowing chuckle while still cursing the suits who blindly accepted it, unaware of the subterfuge.
@@SodlidDesuOr it could be similar to Barbie Girl, where the company didn't want to be the punchline of a song that made them look bad, so they used a modified version in their ads until people forgot the intent of the original.
Trust me you haven’t seen it all yet, this is going to be the absolute tip of the iceberg. Tech is outpacing legislation at a rate that’s going to make this sort of thing a near daily occurrence I reckon
Bette Midler's case is the music industry's way of saying "You can't sue someone for copying your style! ...Unless you're already a professional artist and are wealthy enough to pursue litigation with a large corporation."
Absolutely cannot fathom what bugs must live in your brains if you look at a car company hiring a sound-alike after the real artist turned them down and thinking the artist is the bully in that situation.
@@stephen01king They're not "monopolizing the work", the point of hiring a sound-alike to cover their song is they wanted the ENDORSEMENT. And since they couldn't get it, they manufactured it. It's akin to faking someone's signature! If they'd hired someone to do a cover that sounded clearly different from Midler's performance there would be no issue. And no, that doesn't mean anyone who sounds like Bette Midler is unfairly kept out of work, it just means they can't be hired specifically to manufacture the image of Bette Midler to endorse products.
She absolutely did not sue her for imitating her style. She sued them for trying to deceive the customer into thinking she was endorsing the product when she wasn't. Thus using her image to promote something without her permission. if they had hired someone to sing the same song, they would have been in the clear (since they did get the song rights). If they had hired someone to sing in a similar style without actually trying to pretend it was her, they would have also been in the clear.
Why should they be scared? She has no case. She doesn't own her style, you can't legally own styles. OpenAI has the right to hire someone who sounds like her as long as they don't make it look like they hired her spesifically.
@@eddyblackmore4188They contracted and paid the performer for "the voice." I think you are confused. Theft is when you take it without permission which doesn't apply here, unless you are suggesting that this other performer is not allowed to work and only Scargo is. But that is still not theft. Again, I think you are confused.
@@SircoleYT Except that it's possible this other unnamed performer doesn't exist and they did in fact train the model on Scarlet's voice. In which case it is theft. We don't know yet. Either way, the technology exists and people's voices can be stolen now. It's a valid thing to be concerned or upset by.
Sounds like we need Union rights to be universal and all unions to be dissolved. Taking people's pay to provide them the benefits they should already have.. And all these smooth brained people out here are clamoring for more of that? Shameful.
@@jonahfalcon1970 I mean, that's just an argument that it should be easier to get into SAG-AFTRA, not that people should explicitly avoid hiring people from it.
Right. Which would inevitably drive up the costs of all the things non-union workers do (such as this exact sort of thing, very short-term VA work) which, shockingly enough, would mean the cost to consumers would go up. Unions have their place and they can be very useful, but a LOT of the time they're nothing more than a giant leech sucking money off both ends of any business and making everything more annoying for everybody.
I think that dissenting justice was ignoring just how recognizable Vanna White is. No one is saying that Vanna White could sue any gameboard girl, her look (fashion, makeup, and hair), specific gestures, and her position on Wheel of Fortune are still recognizable even today; Samsung had no leg to stand on when they used her name to refer to the commercial when she wasn't even in it. It was a clear admission that they intended the robot to be her, specifically.
One of your best videos to date. I really enjoy the more legal deep dives that do not necessarily get talked about that much or are difficult to grasp as a layman.
1:50 - Chapter 1 - How did OpenAI create the voice ? 6:25 - Chapter 2 - The right of publicity 7:50 - Chapter 3 - Midler V Ford 10:45 - Chapter 4 - The lanham act 12:55 - Chapter 5 - Publicity rights expand 16:40 - Chapter 6 - Johansson's potential claims against OpenAI 19:30 - End roll ads
If Johansson had never been approached (twice) and dumbass hadn't tweeted that tweet, then they would had probably be fine as different enough or at least sufficient doubt. But with the approaches and the tweet, that was going to hurt them in any court case.
Ya, I don't think they sound similar at all. I would never mix up either voice, but what you said is where I've landed also. I think Altman has likely cost the company a lot of money.
@@TheCatLady65 So am I, but I still always knew it was a reference to Johnny Carson. But then, I, a kid of Xers, also watch the 1950’s game show What’s My Line.
There should be some sort of law to prevent this. Like, before you release ground breaking technology, you need to run it through the government first so that potentially needed laws can be established before we have actual problems....
@@aiaikawa4012thats a bit complicated because technology is a global thing, and international law means nothing at this point sure you can release it in a single country, but it spreads fast
@@aiaikawa4012 that was done for thousands of years. for some reason, we remained in that level of technology *for* thousands of years. wonder why....?
I've heard Waits say that turning down commercial licensing and then suing when they use a sound-alike has been pretty good business. I hear that the agents who facilitate ad music know which artists are gonna say no, but they're paid to ask and receive the 'no' anyway, and then their client asks about making something that sounds just like it, and they tell the client that they'll probably get sued, but they want it anyway, so they get paid to farm out that work and make sure that the contract puts all of the liability on the client when they do inevitably get sued.
1:36 I'm in the 'sounds nothing alike' camp. Though the fact that the fist sample is a Movie mastered sound file, while the other is a phone on speaker, might be a big part of that.
Reaching out to her agent days before launching the system is such a weird choice. What was their plan if they got permission? "You don't have to do anything, we've already trained it"
Small correction as a Star Trek nerd: data had emotions the entire time, they just were not as strong, though in many moments he showcased them, and when brought up he is perplexed. Cheers!
@@mads9259 agreed, the emotion chip itself which lore stole first, didn’t do anything except heighten them further, after all he already had emotion and could express them.
...huh. At least to my ear, it doesn't sound like Johansson. I mean, I could see how someone might think "oh, that sounds kinda like her", but the timbre is different. (Although I agree it terms of sound quality it's closer to Johansson than the backup singer was to Bette Midler.)
yeah... you dropped the ball on that one, you could have said "When Data tried to ice the collector guy" "or "when Data sort of violated the prime directive saving his penpal" OR "anytime he says 'Curious'" I'm embarrassed for you. /S
We had a similar discussion here in Brazil regarding the Volkswagen add which has impersonated Elis Regina (a decease singer) generated by IA. The add has shown Elis with her daughter, as if she was still alive.
I understood your old Hollywood references, including Johnny Weissmuller. He famously attended my high school (Lane Tech in Chicago) so I was well-versed in who he was and why he was famous.
Try to see it from the perspective of the executive trust fund baby or tech bro; if you had a single impressive talent, but found yourself completely unable to do anything else despite wanting to produce a massively ambitious product that requires a large and diverse array of skill sets that you lack, but still want total credit and rewards for producing the product, why wouldn't you want to shaft the other people who made it possible so you could fill that black hole where a human soul should be with validation and profit?
in German TV you often have commercials spoken by famous actors, or atleast their voice actors that voice the german versions of movies. like bruce willies voice was used a lot.
It's telling that a bunch of tech bro's who were largely nurtured on Ayn Rand's philosophy thst selfishness brings democracy and taxes are theft, wanted non union actor's. They wrote a piece of software that all but allows them to print money BUT they don't want to pay the talent that makes it popular and mimics the warmth and human emotions that will doubtless lull the average user into giving away....for free....the valuable demographic information that allows the funding of these projects through advertising. It tells us all we need to know about _their_ humanity and where their values lie.
It's cute that you think techbros are human. In all seriousness, it does say a lot about these guys that they see themselves as John Galt, brilliant inventive who could change the world if they were allowed total self indulgence, but can't do much of anything other than write code on their own. The other parts they're relying on others to pull off, but they want to continue total self indulgence. If you're not already familiar with it, look up that time a bunch of weirdo Rand fans tried to create their own Galt's Gulch in Chile.
They sound similar. But no. The inflections are different. The tone is different. They need to hire a professional voice guy or whatever and have them compare. Or just pull then up side by side in an audio viewer
I had no idea about the Bette Midler lawsuit. I am a huge Bette Midler fan, and I can hear the difference, but it does sound uncannily like her, which would sound the same to most people.
As I say whenever this movie comes up, even without getting into all the ethical implications, Her is my personal vision of hell. Not only do I not want to talk to my electronics, I don't want to live in a world where everybody else talks to their electronics.
The problem is there are many people that sound similar to each other. You'd have to prove they pulled the voice from samples of her actual voice. The recording provided in this video didn't sound identical.
From the sample you provided it does not sound like Scarlett Johansson's voice. It just sounds like a generic female voice. There is a raspy quality to Scarlett Johansson's voice that this sample clearly Lacks.
Courts generally don't like being the first port of call. They generally expect attempts to be made to resolve the issues outside of the courtroom in the first instance, such as contacting the company directly, giving them a reasonable time to action, following the company complaint process, including any available escalation routes, and taking any available ADR route. There are then a lot of pre-lawsuit preparations, administrative delays and so on that further take up time.
I'm glad everyone is having a good laugh with this tech because I find it TERRIFYING. I can come up with a hundred ways I could ruin someone's life with this tech, but it's mostly the reasons I can't think of that scare me the most.
One thing I find interesting about the whole thing is that people are given rights to their image and likeness, but if somebody takes a photo of that person without their consent the author of the photo has rights over that image and not the subject of the photo. It's a fine line, but I think it would merit a good follow up by either the subject being suit by the author for unconsented use or by someone trying to define the line for future endeavours.
Long reply, sorry, but I don't think this is actually a problem that's affecting people in any meaningful way. Yes, people are given rights to their image and likeness, but it's important to remember that this is primarily in a COMMERCIAL context. We have rights to our image and likeness for things like advertising, endorsements, movies, etc. If a photographer takes your photo on the patio of a restaurant that's visible from the street, they can't legally put it on their website or social media without you signing a release. No release, no commercial use. It's pretty simple. You don't, however, have universal rights to your image and likeness is a non-commercial setting, because that would immediately infringe upon free speech. Random example: let's say a reporter takes a photo of Donald Trump punching a protester. Should Donald Trump have the right to have that image removed from publication everywhere, simply because he didn't give consent to be photographed or have his likeness used in that way? How about the protester? Should they have to give consent for that image to be circulated? You can see how any attempt to legislate this would go wrong pretty much instantly and be disastrous for free speech and freedom of the press. And you would never argue Donald Trump should be a copyright holder in that instance. He didn't make the photo, he was just in the frame when it was taken. Again, pretty simple. Therefore, the courts have consistently taken a hands-off approach, which seems to work best. If you're in public without a reasonable expectation of privacy, you can be photographed. Period. It's your responsibility to be aware that cameras exist and you take the risk of being photographed by virtue of leaving your house in the morning. It's not the court's responsibility to protect your privacy, it's yours. Imagine how much of a nightmare taking vacation photos would be if you had to ask everyone in the background for consent. It would be just be madness.
@Mwstmrlnd I didn't say commercial setting, I even was referring (in hindsight, not so well) to people who use other people's photos of them for their social media photo. It is their image, you should have access to and control over it for non-commercial purposes (as you said). So currently if someone takes a photo of Justin Beiber, and he tries to make it his profile picture, the author of the photograph sues him and he end up paying the author a sum for infringing on copyright material. But, as I am trying to say, it is Justin's image and likeness, he should have control and access to it. If Trump punches a protestors, people are more than right to photograph that incident, but if Trump tries to take the I.age and use it as his profile picture, he should be allowed to (with consent of the protestor being punched OR edited without the protestor in the image) because it is his likeness and his image. And if you cannot steal someone's voice and use it to make money, why then can you steal and sell their image? Photographers selling images of Trump punching protestors should get permission or pay a royalty as they are making money from his image without his consent. Otherwise what you get is overbearing paparazzi pushing the boundaries and disrespecting other people's personal space just to take intimate photos of people and then sell them.
@@avsystem3142Wrong. You think tabloids and the media and all the many for-profit websites out there are paying? The person who takes the photo owns it. I can pay you to take a picture for me, and you own it even though I paid. I think this is stupid, to be honest.
@@NoelleTakestheSky Whether a photographer can take a picture of someone without their consent depends on the person's reasonable expectation of privacy (REP) in the location where the photo was taken. In general, people have less REP in more public places, such as parks, beaches, or city squares. For example, it's usually legal to take pictures of people at a political rally, marathon, or rock concert in a park without their permission. However, people can reasonably expect privacy in private places, such as their home, workplace, or changing rooms.
Re 8:00, the same thing was done w Levis 501 jeans copying a Marvin Gaye tune in 1985. Ratledge and Jenkins from Soft Machine, working as a commercial music company, found a singer at a laundromat and reproduced the tune for Levi's, with the intention that be taken for the original.
Doesn't sound like scarjo/samantha to me. Just female in roughly the same pitch range which would be a large percentage of women. The timbre seems quite different to me. Someone even halfway competent at voice impression would sound much more like her.
I was a dispatcher for YEARS, so I have an ear for voices. They do sound similar, but are not identical. Though, I also didn't think the Bette Midler sound-alike was identical...only similar. 🤷
Thank you for explaining the right of publicity. I only recently heard of this concept with that Baby Reindeer lady and didnt understand what she was talking about.
I personally don't think the Sky voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson. If it's true that a different voice actor was used for the Sky voice, does that mean that the unnamed voice actor can't do any voice work ever because she "kinda" sounds like Scarlett? Seems crazy and completely unfair when a celebrity or actor can claim complete ownership over anyone that even sounds remotely similar. What about the rights of this other voice actor to earn a living with her own voice?
It kind of reminds me that Tom Hanks' brother is Woody's voice in Toy Story video games. He sounds almost just like him. I think it was Tom's idea. What does one do if they're twins? Linda Hamilton has an identical twin. She's a nurse. With your logic, which sadly might come to pass, her sister could never work as an actress.
As someone who's been listening to Scarlett's voice for over 20 years I think the first time I heard it was like in Ghost world when that first came out. Scarlett has a very distinctive throat to her voice it doesn't sound like a lot of people's voices and this robot does not sound like her to me. In fact if I heard this voice in a movie that was supposedly being voiced by Scarlett I would assume this was a different actress
Based on how different the voice is, probably so they could add a sixth voice to the FIVE they had already. It’s not uncommon for such apps to have dozens of voices. Has been a thing since the days of early GPS systems, getting a bunch of unknowns to do the default voices then adding famous people later.
Could be marketing or the va could have been hired to do multiple voice roles if they have the range. Voice actors playing multiple characters in one project isnt uncommon. Ive had games that i got signed by a va that played 2 or 3 characters in a single game
True, but that's exempt from copyright under satire. They didn't change Astaire or his dance routine, they just changed his prop recontextualizing the scene: that's a form of parody, so copyright doesn't cover it.
Sky is not Scarlett, nor an imitation/impersonation of Scarlett. The voice is the natural speaking voice of a different person, who is also a professional voice actor, who applied for a job, got the job, did the job. Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in LotR, which he turned down. He does NOT get to sue Sir Ian Mckellan. The job went to another person with similar attributes.
The comedy here is that if Altman didn't reach out to ScarJo TWICE to try and net her for this, OpenAI would have been able to get away with it exactly that argument. 😂 Sam screwed up again!
I wonder if Legal Eagle knows that a lot of Legal Eagle videos were in the Sora training set because of some discovery request by the Eagle Team, who do specialise in people who have suffered a data breach as the ad proclaims. If that were the case, all I can say is that I would be _very_ interested to watch along with popcorn in hand 🍿
This was really interesting, but what I'm most interested in is the non-disparagement agreements that held hostage equity in the company that was part of the compensation, and has interesting implications on whistleblower laws and freedom of speech rights. That's a big legal tangle that I don't know how to parse and I would love to see you do an in-depth dive on that.
That's why the attention on this case is just blowing my mind. The only possible end result is that once someone gets famous, their voice gets 'locked down'. Then anyone else whose voice is even close to theirs is legally barred from profiting from speaking?
@@znconThe case is reliant on the fact that OpenAI reached out to Johanneson and Altman's aforementioned love of the film "her". If it wasn't for those factors then OpenAI would still have their plausible deniability on who's voice they trained their product on. It only makes it more suspicious that they refuse to name their supposed actress. This case probably will not end up setting too much of a useful precedence because people will simply just not reach out to those who they want to voice-clone beforehand. It would take a spectacular screw up to even be caught in a case like this but that's what Altman has gotten OpenAI into.
That Midler case seems to miss out on an obvious possible motive - they liked the sound. Would the commercial have had a different ruling if it had text on screen saying 'This is not Bette Midler, just a singer that sounds like her'? The case seemed to hinge not on whether it was/sounded like the same voice but on whether people might mistake it for someone famous and that such person has condoned the product. To put in other words, theorectically any possible misunderstanding on the voice for someone famous could put the product in hot water. There are a lot of people that naturally sound like other people. In fact, I would propose that with 7 billion people on the planet it would be nigh impossible to not have many many people that sound alike any one other person. To then say that only the first person who got famous with that voice can use it seems wildly restrictive. I would not be surprised if this case law gets overriden at some point.
Honestly, if they had put that text on screen, it sounds like there never would have been a lawsuit in the first place since Bette Midler just didn't want to be seen endorsing a product, so if there wasn't an apparent attempt to shoehorn her into a situation she didn't want to be in, odds are good she would have just saved herself the time and expense of litigation if it was clear that she wasn't the one behind this.
For me, the smoking gun is Sam Altman's tweet before the release of GPT-4o, of just: "Her". The biggest factor in likeness and publicity claims is whether or not the company was trying to deceive the consumer. Reaching out to ScarJo to provide her voice was not public and so consumers would not know. Personally, I think the voice is not identical enough for a slam dunk case, but as soon as Altman publicly compares his product to "Her" he has now drawn the comparison for consumers to see, thus is the deception. That one-word Tweet is going to bite him in the ass.
If those soundalike cases have all been successful... how come Family Guy hasn't been sued a million times over? They use soundalikes for celebrities all the time
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Does "Sky" sound like ScarJo? 👨💻 Remove personal information off the web with Incogni with code LEGALEAGLE legaleagle.link/incogni ⚖ Get a great lawyer, fast! legaleagle.link/eagleteam
No. They were very different tones, and the pitch was different.
Nope.
No, more like Rashida Jones honestly. But it is/was my favorite voice on ChatGPT.
She said her friends and some media outlets said they couldn't tell the difference, but I argue that her friends are more likely to say yes no matter what, to be supportive of her, and media outlets have more to gain in terms of clicks and views by going with the most divisive answer, that they sound identical. Her voice honestly doesn't sound like it, it only does in terms of both voices are nice voices, female, and helpful sounding, which ChatGPT has been trained to be helpful for sometime now, and being helpful isn't copyrightable, but you can expect someone who is helpful to have a helpful sounding voice.
Sounds similar, but not the same. How unique are voices though? I work with 2 people that sound identical. I heard many people that just like someone else I know. Voice doppelgangers are pretty common.
As a European it is wild that they can have "should be non union" as a requirement for a job. In Europe it is considered sensitive personal data and it is illegal to treat employees differently based on union membership.
The union was on strike at the time, so it seems more like shorthand for ‘willing and able to work’. Eg, they could be in the union but willing to break union rules.
@@peter65zzfdfh
Like the Alito flag, the timeline doesn't match.
OpenAI issued a casting call for non-union last May, the actress was hired in June.
The SAG-AFTRA strike was between July 14 and November 9, 2023.
@@peter65zzfdfhIn Europe no union forces you to strike either. It's up to the individual every time wether a member joins a union action or not.
@@TheBayruNobody is forced to strike in the USA either. The union will just remove you as a member if you scab.
@@peter65zzfdfhthat is called strike breaking, which is even worse
A casting call asking for "non union actors" screams "we are going to take advantage of you!"
I believe this was in the middle of the strike so it was that or just non American voices. But yes obviously when they’re paying royalties on potentially trillions of impressions they wanted a low base rate, I imagine a union member would be entitled to more than the GDP of the world for that role.
Because union actors would ask for residuals, and they would prefer not to pay forever to read some stock phrases and a dictionary to be stitched into code later. Who’s the voice for Alexa, and how much do they get paid a month for a few days/weeks work a decade ago?
@@peter65zzfdfh
They chose to hire non-union.
There was no strike at the time that all this went down.
OpenAI issued a casting call for non-union last May, the actress was hired in June.
The SAG-AFTRA strike was between July 14 and November 9, 2023.
This was not done because they didn't have an alternative. They had the choice and decided to be cheap and take advantage.
Ok.
Literally. It's such a massive red flag
Not a good sign when the first ask for a job is “Must not be in a union…”
No. We just had a strike over this. "Oh, you're non-union? Sign this. Get paid a few bucks while we use your vocal likeness without royalties til the end of time." Not too different from what you get when you do porn.
@@jonahfalcon1970the actress was given an agreement that included royalties while it was being used. Royalties she’s missing out on due to the reaction of a wealthy actress.
@@peter65zzfdfh She needs to go after the company. ScarJo did nothing wrong.
@@ChristophBrinkmann Not only that, but if they're doing this sort of thing to someone like ScarJo, imagine what they're doing to actors and other creatives we *haven't* heard of.
@@peter65zzfdfh you're taking several leaps of logic here, which include "abusive contracts are never a thing", "i personally know the involved parties and can assure what was written on that contract down to the royalties clause", plus assuming somehow the situation would play perfectly how you've imagined in your head. It's not and johansson is just protecting her image as she should. Take several seats.
As an FYI incogni is also difficult to cancel. You must open a support ticket and undergo multiple questions and offers prior to them allowing you to cancel their service.
It's a predatory tactic and I would reconsider your relationship with them
Honestly, I just assume any RUclips sponsor is a crap product at this point.
@@PleasantSludge yeah probably a good rule of thumb
@@PleasantSludge This. Even from the people who insist they actually use the product.
@@PleasantSludge my friend is happy with scent bird and used them for a year.
Amazon does the same. I canceled prime, so they just charged the PayPal account without confirmation or noice. Found out from my bank statement. It’s easy to over look 15$ for most people. However, living paycheck to paycheck means I scrutinize every transaction, and was able to catch this.
“You know who would be great to antagonize? That actress who’s lawyers beat Disney”
Eh Disney beat themselves on that case handed her lawyer a slam dunk
Whose* 😅
Following the “Ghostbusters Model” of being turned down by a celebrity and reacting by duplicating that celebrity as nearly as possible.
The actress whos lawyers beat Disney, and who's husband can and will roast the shit out of you on live TV.
None of the above.
"See you iiiiiiiiiin court" is the funniest thing I've experienced all day.
The caption was right all along! I couldn't believe it wasn't Devin!
In all seriousness though, yes. That was fantastic.
I would say I'm going to have nightmares about Deepfake Devin, but I'll probably start laughing when he shows up, so that's okay.
Right but see how creepily accurate it was - with, what, presumably just a couple hours of training. Give it a years' training on someone and it will be indistinguishable from a real person. Wars can start over this. People will go to prison over this. Society will collapse because of this.
Well done humanity.
@@sarcasticstartrek7719 Thankfully, the technology that detects fakes has historically advanced faster than the technology that creates them. That's not to say that can't change though.
@@thefaithlessheathen the issue is though, that yes, you can reply to a post or video saying "that's fake and this data proves it" but it's too late by then. The lie is spread. And it's bad enough now when people literally just make up invented quotes to prove them wrong - when there's a video to the human eye that is undetectable, no about of "aKsHuaLly its fake" will convince anyone who doesn't want to be.
This is a very, VERY dangerous time.
"The actors should be nonunion" well there's your problem.
We need to stand together against the corpos.
I'm playing cyberpunk right now, down with Arasaka
yeah so pathetic. they probably never wanted to pay scarlett anyway. they wanted to to pay someone $100 one time so they can steal their likliness for decades and make millions from it.
I caught that and didn't like that either.
We need more anti-unionbusting laws. Also job discrimination based on unionization should become illegal.
@@kingace6186 "Also job discrimination based on unionization should become illegal." You're not wrong... but don't expect anybody else to fix this. If you really, truly believe that, then be the change you want to see - run for some kind of elected office; local, state, or even national-level. I believe in you.
Europe has had a tangential issue to this for decades: typically the same voice actor is hired to dub.the same actor in all of their roles. So one woman always does ScarJo, and viewers learn to associate the two. The voice actors are then hired to do radio spots commercial voice-overs, implicitly giving the impression that the ScarJo herself is endorsing the product.
Therefore it is only okey for kids shows... since they (I when I was younger and all I know/knew) only think/thought "how similar"
That’s actually fascinating. I’ve never even considered that as a reality of international media
I don't know what the rules are in Europe. But in the US, you can make ridiculous false statements in commercials and other things as long as "no reasonable person would believe it".
I bring this up because it could be somewhat of a similar concept--how many people don't know what dubbing is and thus confuse dub actor/actress with the actor/actress on screen? Would those who are thus confused satisfy the "reasonable person" standard?
Personally, I don't think celebrity endorsement means much in general, at most it means they aren't dead against the product they are being paid to promote. But that is on the other extreme end of the spectrum so I know my view is not the standard.
20% auf alles außer Tiernahrung!
The german voice of Bruce Willis he used to be everywhere.
HEY!!! Adobe changed their terms and agreement on 4.2 which seems to be a blank check to content. I'm part of a company that uses their products extensively and our clients are big corporations. Their agreement seems to suggest we give them an open ended license to the content we use.
I don't believe we can give rights to our clients artwork.
But also this seems like anyone using Adobe products like reader for PDFs is just giving them open ended control of the data. I think lots of medical documents would be open to data theft through this agreement change. Isn't that also a HIPPA violation?
I need legal eagle to look into this!
Thank you for talking about this!
@@DaveGreco it seriously needs to be addressed by multiple industries. This goes beyond stealing artists works even though that's it's intention.
This needs more attention!
Leave it to Adobe to become the ‘industry standard’ and then EULA roofie their customers. It’s disgusting.
@@Xerpocalypse_ hopefully this means people star dumping more money into free software, and make GIMP the new Photoshop!
OpenAI has broken every license they ever encountered. This is right up their alley.
Such as?
"To protect her privacy, we can't release her name." Ah, the normal thing where actresses don't want credit for their work.
I thought they usually put artists in witness protection into convents where they make the choirs into world-wide sensations.
It's not only that. She's non-union, and they probably got her to sign something where she gets paid once and never ever gets any royalties from now til the end of time.
@@jonahfalcon1970the contract apparently includes royalties while the voice continues to be used.
I imagine there’s a bunch of deranged fans that would be a threat to her safety if her identity was public, and potentially people that had issue with her not being in a union or working outside their rules if she was.
No doubt the amount of compensation isn’t that great she can afford to hire security and deal with the media circus. And clearly she sounds nothing alike.
@@peter65zzfdfh If you got into acting to AVOID publicity, you're in the wrong business. Performing is performing. You can always opt to be Greta Garbo, but that means no more acting.
And I don't believe a second she got royalties, as the entire point of not hiring union is to AVOID paying royalties. LMAO
@peter65zzfdfh you don't get more work as a performer by hiding your name. So she's either A) under an NDA, B) so ashamed of working for this company that she's just taking her paycheck uncredited, or C) not a real person.
what they meant to say is she's nonunion so legally we dont have to release her name, also we forced her to sign an NDA so she cant tell anyone
The best part about that data clip is guinan asking him "more?" and data replies happily "please"
And that day, Data learned he's a sub
Absolutely classic 😂
TNG was goat
"The actors should be nonunion"
hm.
Yup.
Why?
why are tech bros such cheapskates?
@@brenatevi Um, no.
They probably hid a "we reserve the right to use your voice in perpetuity" clause into whatever contract she signed too.
Wait, so "Here's Johnny" in The Shining when Jack breaks into the bathroom is actually extra funny now?
Yeah it's one of those things that was a pretty much universally understood reference in its time. Whereas now if you were to put a "Here's Johnny" reference into a piece of media, regardless of context, it would still be universally understood to be a reference, but the vast majority would understand it to be from the film.
Which makes me wonder if there'll eventually be another piece of incredibly popular media that divorces it from The Shining
@Ellie-rx3jt If one bursts in and says "Here's Johnny," it's The Shining.
If they mime a golf club swing, or put an envelope to their head, it's Carson.
As a Millennial, I'm too young to know this info. I'm the last Carson link. But older people do still exist, so let's not pretend teenaged culture is the only American culture and jargon.
yeah, Jack Nicholson was doing an excellent impression of a deranged Johnny Carson.
@@Ellie-rx3jt That's actually what happened in Looney Toons as well! When Bugs Bunny calls Elmer "Nimrod" it was actually a biblical reference to a great hunter, but now most people hear the word Nimrod and think buffon
Johnny Five!
They wanted Scar Jo but they also advertised for a non-union voice actor. God forbid the tech bros pay an artist what they deserve.
The advertisement went up a year ago when the union was on strike so they didn’t have any union options. They only reached out for a sixth voice after they had these five already. Probably to get the publicity from the overreaction to a voice that sounds nothing alike.
@peter65zzfdh Yeah but they could have waited until the strike was over. It wasn’t so urgent that they needed to do it immediately.
@@EverLearningDragon how exactly did they know when the strike would finish and how do you know not only how long it takes to integrate the natural voices with the model or when they intended for it to be released. Voices for video games are done well in advance of their release.
@@backupplan6058They didn't need to release in the specific quarter. Especially given that they probably could have done fine without a voice.
Tech bros are lizards
If they had not contacted her in the first place and straight up hired the person who became Skye (sky? idk) i'd not have enough suspicion to be cautious. Removing the voice does not help at the slightest either.
If indeed they have a valid voice actress in the background that sounds very similar to Scarlet Johansen then pulling the voice helps avoid a lawsuit and show goodwill in case a lawsuit actually does emerge.
Anyway I think they just really wanted her voice but got someone that sounds similar instead, but now that she's threatening to sue they suddenly realize how it looks.
Reminder that they (allegedly) hired the voice actor for Sky long *before* they ever reached out to Johansen and never instructed her to sound like Johansen, which doesn't make it as obvious as the Midler V Ford case mentioned in the video, since the deliberate imitation there was incredibly clear cut.
Not to say they couldn't still be in some kind of legal trouble, I feel like a lot of it could've been reasonably avoided had the CEO not made so many direct references to the movie 'Her' on the lead up to showing off the new voices....Very stupid move lol, just let the fans make the connection, don't make any comments that could be understood to mean you were trying to "copy" things in the movie....
Well, since they removed the voice it does not really matter.
I mean they can't even verify that the voice actor they supposedly hired *exists*
"nobody in my audience knows any of those people" Some of us grew up pre-internet you know.
yes and when we were young they referenced people like Humphrey Bogart so we learnt who he was instead of complaining
I know. I felt old haha
I can forgive hiim for assuming nobody would know Johnny Weissmuller, but Clint Eastwood? REALLY, DEVLIN?
Yeah, I'm a 1980 baby, dude, I totally know of all of these people.
We don’t matter anymore. It’s ok my long toothed dudes.
lol. How brazen. Frito Lay copies Tom Waits voice for a commercial after hearing a song where Waits was mocking corny commercials. It's absolutely no surprise he wanted nothing to do with it. What a brain-dead and out of touch move by their marketing team. Marketers have sold their souls, corrupting genuine art for corporate greed. I've seen it all my life.
I mean, you could note the inherent rebellion by selling your boss a song that's making fun of shady people selling garbage and give the creative side of the house a knowing chuckle while still cursing the suits who blindly accepted it, unaware of the subterfuge.
@@SodlidDesuOr it could be similar to Barbie Girl, where the company didn't want to be the punchline of a song that made them look bad, so they used a modified version in their ads until people forgot the intent of the original.
Trust me you haven’t seen it all yet, this is going to be the absolute tip of the iceberg. Tech is outpacing legislation at a rate that’s going to make this sort of thing a near daily occurrence I reckon
The next year he sued a car company for the same thing.
Bette Midler's case is the music industry's way of saying "You can't sue someone for copying your style! ...Unless you're already a professional artist and are wealthy enough to pursue litigation with a large corporation."
Absolutely cannot fathom what bugs must live in your brains if you look at a car company hiring a sound-alike after the real artist turned them down and thinking the artist is the bully in that situation.
They are a bully if they think they can monopolize the work without wanting to accept doing the work.
@@stephen01king They're not "monopolizing the work", the point of hiring a sound-alike to cover their song is they wanted the ENDORSEMENT. And since they couldn't get it, they manufactured it. It's akin to faking someone's signature!
If they'd hired someone to do a cover that sounded clearly different from Midler's performance there would be no issue.
And no, that doesn't mean anyone who sounds like Bette Midler is unfairly kept out of work, it just means they can't be hired specifically to manufacture the image of Bette Midler to endorse products.
She absolutely did not sue her for imitating her style. She sued them for trying to deceive the customer into thinking she was endorsing the product when she wasn't. Thus using her image to promote something without her permission.
if they had hired someone to sing the same song, they would have been in the clear (since they did get the song rights). If they had hired someone to sing in a similar style without actually trying to pretend it was her, they would have also been in the clear.
I think the thing that should scare them the most, is that she had the courage to sue Disney when they tried to screw her over. She has no fear.
Why should they be scared? She has no case. She doesn't own her style, you can't legally own styles. OpenAI has the right to hire someone who sounds like her as long as they don't make it look like they hired her spesifically.
Always interesting to see how companies and corporations deal with being told “no”.
I miss when getting your voice stolen was something that the fae folk did, not multi-billion dollar corporations
At least Ursula did it with a contract...
@@eddyblackmore4188They contracted and paid the performer for "the voice." I think you are confused. Theft is when you take it without permission which doesn't apply here, unless you are suggesting that this other performer is not allowed to work and only Scargo is. But that is still not theft. Again, I think you are confused.
I think the Fae steal the name too
ScarJo is a multimillion dollar IP. / corporatin
@@SircoleYT Except that it's possible this other unnamed performer doesn't exist and they did in fact train the model on Scarlet's voice. In which case it is theft. We don't know yet. Either way, the technology exists and people's voices can be stolen now. It's a valid thing to be concerned or upset by.
"Should be nonunion." Sounds like we need more unions and more union membership.
It's not easy to get into SAG-AFTRA. I know.
@jonahfalcon1970 there are other actors' unions. ❤
Sounds like we need Union rights to be universal and all unions to be dissolved. Taking people's pay to provide them the benefits they should already have.. And all these smooth brained people out here are clamoring for more of that? Shameful.
@@jonahfalcon1970 I mean, that's just an argument that it should be easier to get into SAG-AFTRA, not that people should explicitly avoid hiring people from it.
Right. Which would inevitably drive up the costs of all the things non-union workers do (such as this exact sort of thing, very short-term VA work) which, shockingly enough, would mean the cost to consumers would go up. Unions have their place and they can be very useful, but a LOT of the time they're nothing more than a giant leech sucking money off both ends of any business and making everything more annoying for everybody.
I think that dissenting justice was ignoring just how recognizable Vanna White is. No one is saying that Vanna White could sue any gameboard girl, her look (fashion, makeup, and hair), specific gestures, and her position on Wheel of Fortune are still recognizable even today; Samsung had no leg to stand on when they used her name to refer to the commercial when she wasn't even in it. It was a clear admission that they intended the robot to be her, specifically.
One of your best videos to date. I really enjoy the more legal deep dives that do not necessarily get talked about that much or are difficult to grasp as a layman.
1:50 - Chapter 1 - How did OpenAI create the voice ?
6:25 - Chapter 2 - The right of publicity
7:50 - Chapter 3 - Midler V Ford
10:45 - Chapter 4 - The lanham act
12:55 - Chapter 5 - Publicity rights expand
16:40 - Chapter 6 - Johansson's potential claims against OpenAI
19:30 - End roll ads
They didn't steal it, they signed a regular contract to give her legs and take her voice.
You need a King to take your place to get out of that one.
Took me a minute to get
You dropped this 👑
Oh!!!! It took me half the video before I got it 😂 This is very clever
@@jesshallock5346what did they mean?
4:19 - "The actors should be non-union" = we don't want anyone with any concept of how hard we're ripping you off
Guinan: "More?"
Data: "Please!"
If Johansson had never been approached (twice) and dumbass hadn't tweeted that tweet, then they would had probably be fine as different enough or at least sufficient doubt. But with the approaches and the tweet, that was going to hurt them in any court case.
Ya, I don't think they sound similar at all. I would never mix up either voice, but what you said is where I've landed also. I think Altman has likely cost the company a lot of money.
This is the day I found out that "Here's Johnny" in The Shining was a reference.
yeah i thought people referencing that were referencing the shining
Too young to remember Johnny Carson 😂
@@TheCatLady65It's not their fault! Though it is kinda cute, huh😊
@@TheCatLady65but old enough to recognize the shining. 😂 we aren’t young anymore.
@@TheCatLady65 So am I, but I still always knew it was a reference to Johnny Carson. But then, I, a kid of Xers, also watch the 1950’s game show What’s My Line.
Thank you for changing the thumbnail. That Photoshop of Scarlett without her mouth was... haunting...
Uh! It's back! 😂
"The actors should be non-union" jfc these tech dweebs really are scummy in every way.
One of my favorite cases from law school was Vanna White v. Samsung. Samsung built a Vanna White robot and White sued successfully.
The main problem, in my opinion, is that technology is evolving faster than the law.
thats a rookie mistake. the law should be able to keep pace with technology, if not far ahead of it in some areas.
There should be some sort of law to prevent this. Like, before you release ground breaking technology, you need to run it through the government first so that potentially needed laws can be established before we have actual problems....
@@aiaikawa4012thats a bit complicated because technology is a global thing, and international law means nothing at this point
sure you can release it in a single country, but it spreads fast
@@aiaikawa4012 that was done for thousands of years. for some reason, we remained in that level of technology *for* thousands of years. wonder why....?
@@aiaikawa4012 honestly idk why the government doesn’t just ban technology and math and books too!
I've heard Waits say that turning down commercial licensing and then suing when they use a sound-alike has been pretty good business. I hear that the agents who facilitate ad music know which artists are gonna say no, but they're paid to ask and receive the 'no' anyway, and then their client asks about making something that sounds just like it, and they tell the client that they'll probably get sued, but they want it anyway, so they get paid to farm out that work and make sure that the contract puts all of the liability on the client when they do inevitably get sued.
Oh hey it's a topic I have personal stake in (I'm a voice actor)
"Human level response times"...
Last time I checked, I was human, and these response times are way faster than me.
¨To protect the privacy of your talents¨ you know normally actors like to be credited
They did it to protect the actress from money and fame
The union would blacklist her iff she came forward
@@oliverlane9716 did not think about that, obviously these guys wouldn´t hire union actors
1:36 I'm in the 'sounds nothing alike' camp.
Though the fact that the fist sample is a Movie mastered sound file, while the other is a phone on speaker, might be a big part of that.
I mean I'm with you but I can totally buy she was casted for having a similar feel
Of course that's perfectly legal so ...
The Twitter comment 'Her,' asking Scarlet Johansson more than once for permission, and not giving it doesn't help OpenAi's side of the story.
Reaching out to her agent days before launching the system is such a weird choice. What was their plan if they got permission? "You don't have to do anything, we've already trained it"
And the dance around the bush when asked to detail the process by which they developed it
They literally asking for an
*Audit/Lawsuit* at this point.
Small correction as a Star Trek nerd: data had emotions the entire time, they just were not as strong, though in many moments he showcased them, and when brought up he is perplexed. Cheers!
Data definitely has emotions, I agree. I think it was the connection to humanity that was his real struggle.
@@mads9259 agreed, the emotion chip itself which lore stole first, didn’t do anything except heighten them further, after all he already had emotion and could express them.
@@Mikerille I also have taken some stuff that has done that to me. Allegedly.
Data was just written as an autistic character imao
Data’s character got so good in season 3
...huh. At least to my ear, it doesn't sound like Johansson. I mean, I could see how someone might think "oh, that sounds kinda like her", but the timbre is different. (Although I agree it terms of sound quality it's closer to Johansson than the backup singer was to Bette Midler.)
We know why that one guy made that robot of Scarlett
Ya, now that is damn creepy.
Data absolutely has emotions. Just not human. i.e. he felt anger and pleasure on his own when he choked out a borg.
Except in that episode it is made clear that Lore was using some sort of remote manipulation of Data to give him those emotions.
Yeah learn the lore JOSH
yeah... you dropped the ball on that one, you could have said "When Data tried to ice the collector guy" "or "when Data sort of violated the prime directive saving his penpal" OR "anytime he says 'Curious'"
I'm embarrassed for you. /S
Fuckin Josh
We had a similar discussion here in Brazil regarding the Volkswagen add which has impersonated Elis Regina (a decease singer) generated by IA. The add has shown Elis with her daughter, as if she was still alive.
15:30 - "though it occurs to me now, that no one in my audience knows any of those people..."
me: 💀💀💀
Yeah, I'm the outlier in his audience demographics, Medicare-aged female just a year older than Bill Gates.
😢 I guess I gotta go?
I understood your old Hollywood references, including Johnny Weissmuller. He famously attended my high school (Lane Tech in Chicago) so I was well-versed in who he was and why he was famous.
Objection this is not a reaction to the Deposition episode of The Office
"Should be nonunion" speaks volumes. What is it with American companies disliking people being in Unions to protect themselves.
Try to see it from the perspective of the executive trust fund baby or tech bro; if you had a single impressive talent, but found yourself completely unable to do anything else despite wanting to produce a massively ambitious product that requires a large and diverse array of skill sets that you lack, but still want total credit and rewards for producing the product, why wouldn't you want to shaft the other people who made it possible so you could fill that black hole where a human soul should be with validation and profit?
I clearly remember Autry, Eastwood, Stewart, AND Weismuller. I shall now cry.
in German TV you often have commercials spoken by famous actors, or atleast their voice actors that voice the german versions of movies.
like bruce willies voice was used a lot.
It's telling that a bunch of tech bro's who were largely nurtured on Ayn Rand's philosophy thst selfishness brings democracy and taxes are theft, wanted non union actor's.
They wrote a piece of software that all but allows them to print money BUT they don't want to pay the talent that makes it popular and mimics the warmth and human emotions that will doubtless lull the average user into giving away....for free....the valuable demographic information that allows the funding of these projects through advertising.
It tells us all we need to know about _their_ humanity and where their values lie.
I'm always here for roasting Ayn Rand AND tech bros in one fell swoop!
It's cute that you think techbros are human. In all seriousness, it does say a lot about these guys that they see themselves as John Galt, brilliant inventive who could change the world if they were allowed total self indulgence, but can't do much of anything other than write code on their own. The other parts they're relying on others to pull off, but they want to continue total self indulgence. If you're not already familiar with it, look up that time a bunch of weirdo Rand fans tried to create their own Galt's Gulch in Chile.
As a regular Lowering the Bar reader, I was impressed to see you citing it at 13:51.
They sound similar. But no. The inflections are different. The tone is different. They need to hire a professional voice guy or whatever and have them compare. Or just pull then up side by side in an audio viewer
As a voice actor, thank you for covering this topic!
I had no idea about the Bette Midler lawsuit. I am a huge Bette Midler fan, and I can hear the difference, but it does sound uncannily like her, which would sound the same to most people.
As I say whenever this movie comes up, even without getting into all the ethical implications, Her is my personal vision of hell. Not only do I not want to talk to my electronics, I don't want to live in a world where everybody else talks to their electronics.
The problem is there are many people that sound similar to each other. You'd have to prove they pulled the voice from samples of her actual voice. The recording provided in this video didn't sound identical.
From the sample you provided it does not sound like Scarlett Johansson's voice. It just sounds like a generic female voice. There is a raspy quality to Scarlett Johansson's voice that this sample clearly Lacks.
We call that the 4 pack a day death rattle.
@@stargazer7644 NICE ^_^
Gotta love that "must be nonunion" detail there...
What im wondering is why now? The sky voice has been in ChatGPT since last year 2023.
Lawsuits take time.
Courts generally don't like being the first port of call. They generally expect attempts to be made to resolve the issues outside of the courtroom in the first instance, such as contacting the company directly, giving them a reasonable time to action, following the company complaint process, including any available escalation routes, and taking any available ADR route. There are then a lot of pre-lawsuit preparations, administrative delays and so on that further take up time.
"No one in my audience knows any of those people." Yes, that is correct in my case. 😅
I appreciate you and thank you for making content.
Gotta love that the first requirement OpenAI had on their casting call for a voice actor was "Non-union".
I'm glad everyone is having a good laugh with this tech because I find it TERRIFYING. I can come up with a hundred ways I could ruin someone's life with this tech, but it's mostly the reasons I can't think of that scare me the most.
One thing I find interesting about the whole thing is that people are given rights to their image and likeness, but if somebody takes a photo of that person without their consent the author of the photo has rights over that image and not the subject of the photo.
It's a fine line, but I think it would merit a good follow up by either the subject being suit by the author for unconsented use or by someone trying to define the line for future endeavours.
No photographer, pro or otherwise, can use an image of a person for commercial purposes without a signed release from that person, payment optional.
Long reply, sorry, but I don't think this is actually a problem that's affecting people in any meaningful way.
Yes, people are given rights to their image and likeness, but it's important to remember that this is primarily in a COMMERCIAL context. We have rights to our image and likeness for things like advertising, endorsements, movies, etc. If a photographer takes your photo on the patio of a restaurant that's visible from the street, they can't legally put it on their website or social media without you signing a release. No release, no commercial use. It's pretty simple.
You don't, however, have universal rights to your image and likeness is a non-commercial setting, because that would immediately infringe upon free speech. Random example: let's say a reporter takes a photo of Donald Trump punching a protester. Should Donald Trump have the right to have that image removed from publication everywhere, simply because he didn't give consent to be photographed or have his likeness used in that way? How about the protester? Should they have to give consent for that image to be circulated? You can see how any attempt to legislate this would go wrong pretty much instantly and be disastrous for free speech and freedom of the press. And you would never argue Donald Trump should be a copyright holder in that instance. He didn't make the photo, he was just in the frame when it was taken. Again, pretty simple.
Therefore, the courts have consistently taken a hands-off approach, which seems to work best. If you're in public without a reasonable expectation of privacy, you can be photographed. Period. It's your responsibility to be aware that cameras exist and you take the risk of being photographed by virtue of leaving your house in the morning. It's not the court's responsibility to protect your privacy, it's yours. Imagine how much of a nightmare taking vacation photos would be if you had to ask everyone in the background for consent. It would be just be madness.
@Mwstmrlnd I didn't say commercial setting, I even was referring (in hindsight, not so well) to people who use other people's photos of them for their social media photo. It is their image, you should have access to and control over it for non-commercial purposes (as you said). So currently if someone takes a photo of Justin Beiber, and he tries to make it his profile picture, the author of the photograph sues him and he end up paying the author a sum for infringing on copyright material. But, as I am trying to say, it is Justin's image and likeness, he should have control and access to it.
If Trump punches a protestors, people are more than right to photograph that incident, but if Trump tries to take the I.age and use it as his profile picture, he should be allowed to (with consent of the protestor being punched OR edited without the protestor in the image) because it is his likeness and his image. And if you cannot steal someone's voice and use it to make money, why then can you steal and sell their image? Photographers selling images of Trump punching protestors should get permission or pay a royalty as they are making money from his image without his consent.
Otherwise what you get is overbearing paparazzi pushing the boundaries and disrespecting other people's personal space just to take intimate photos of people and then sell them.
@@avsystem3142Wrong. You think tabloids and the media and all the many for-profit websites out there are paying? The person who takes the photo owns it. I can pay you to take a picture for me, and you own it even though I paid. I think this is stupid, to be honest.
@@NoelleTakestheSky Whether a photographer can take a picture of someone without their consent depends on the person's reasonable expectation of privacy (REP) in the location where the photo was taken. In general, people have less REP in more public places, such as parks, beaches, or city squares. For example, it's usually legal to take pictures of people at a political rally, marathon, or rock concert in a park without their permission. However, people can reasonably expect privacy in private places, such as their home, workplace, or changing rooms.
Re 8:00, the same thing was done w Levis 501 jeans copying a Marvin Gaye tune in 1985. Ratledge and Jenkins from Soft Machine, working as a commercial music company, found a singer at a laundromat and reproduced the tune for Levi's, with the intention that be taken for the original.
Way to make me feel old, sir. I got all those references. XD
it's interesting that Carson was the one involved in the suit, when it's McMahon's line they used.
Doesn't sound like scarjo/samantha to me. Just female in roughly the same pitch range which would be a large percentage of women. The timbre seems quite different to me. Someone even halfway competent at voice impression would sound much more like her.
Sounds more like 1/5th the country than ScarJo.
That's because they told the voice actress to sound like Scarlett Johanson if she was trying not to legally infringe on herself.
@@paulpinecone2464 No, they didn't. She used her natural speaking voice. WaPo confirmed this.
I was a dispatcher for YEARS, so I have an ear for voices. They do sound similar, but are not identical. Though, I also didn't think the Bette Midler sound-alike was identical...only similar. 🤷
Thank you for explaining the right of publicity. I only recently heard of this concept with that Baby Reindeer lady and didnt understand what she was talking about.
"The difference between parody and knock-off is the difference between fun and profit."
Now that...[dons shades]...is a bar.
Why do you think Hollywood "WRITERS and ACTORS" PROTESTED... For WGA & Sag-Aftra/Strike for a REASON?!... 😡🤬
"It's completely unintentional that the actress we hired sounds almost exactly like the much more expensive actress we tried to hire"
She doesn't sound alike though
@@BooleanDisorder Then why'd they delete it?
@@LurdiakAvoiding expensive lawsuits. It's not like lawsuits are any cheaper even if you did nothing wrong.
I'm proud to be a member of your audience that in fact gets all of the cases referenced in this. *high-fives*
I personally don't think the Sky voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson. If it's true that a different voice actor was used for the Sky voice, does that mean that the unnamed voice actor can't do any voice work ever because she "kinda" sounds like Scarlett? Seems crazy and completely unfair when a celebrity or actor can claim complete ownership over anyone that even sounds remotely similar. What about the rights of this other voice actor to earn a living with her own voice?
It kind of reminds me that Tom Hanks' brother is Woody's voice in Toy Story video games. He sounds almost just like him. I think it was Tom's idea.
What does one do if they're twins? Linda Hamilton has an identical twin. She's a nurse. With your logic, which sadly might come to pass, her sister could never work as an actress.
That ending bit from your Nebula cut, killed me; "it might be fun!"
We see her in a bunch of movies but I always forget that Bette midler was a singer first
As someone who's been listening to Scarlett's voice for over 20 years I think the first time I heard it was like in Ghost world when that first came out. Scarlett has a very distinctive throat to her voice it doesn't sound like a lot of people's voices and this robot does not sound like her to me. In fact if I heard this voice in a movie that was supposedly being voiced by Scarlett I would assume this was a different actress
If they already had someone hired, why ask Johansson to use her voice? Was it just for marketing
Probably they realized that the unknown actress sounded like Johannsson.
yes they clearly wanted to market it as a real life "her"
Based on how different the voice is, probably so they could add a sixth voice to the FIVE they had already. It’s not uncommon for such apps to have dozens of voices. Has been a thing since the days of early GPS systems, getting a bunch of unknowns to do the default voices then adding famous people later.
@@peter65zzfdfhgreat example is K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider for car navigation systems.
Could be marketing or the va could have been hired to do multiple voice roles if they have the range. Voice actors playing multiple characters in one project isnt uncommon. Ive had games that i got signed by a va that played 2 or 3 characters in a single game
Yous should do a teardown of the Pile which possibly affects your videos as well
I'll never forget seeing Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner and wondering how pissed he would be if he were still around to see it.
True, but that's exempt from copyright under satire. They didn't change Astaire or his dance routine, they just changed his prop recontextualizing the scene: that's a form of parody, so copyright doesn't cover it.
@@golwenlothlindel I can see that. If he were still alive, would he have any recourse to stop the commercial?
@@John-g6x1h he could try to argue that it damaged his reputation, but I'd have a hard time seeing a jury agree with that.
He would probably think it was awesome. He was really into technology and trick photography.
@@John-g6x1h His estate was paid to use his likeness and choreography.
Sky is not Scarlett, nor an imitation/impersonation of Scarlett. The voice is the natural speaking voice of a different person, who is also a professional voice actor, who applied for a job, got the job, did the job.
Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in LotR, which he turned down. He does NOT get to sue Sir Ian Mckellan. The job went to another person with similar attributes.
The voice doesn't sound similar, but the cadence does.
Agreed
The comedy here is that if Altman didn't reach out to ScarJo TWICE to try and net her for this, OpenAI would have been able to get away with it exactly that argument. 😂 Sam screwed up again!
@@dragonstormstudios8871Yea well. He was a fan of her. He couldn’t predict her to decline the proposition of the century.
the vocal fry also sounds really scarjo
@@MetallicReg I think that speaks to him being more full of himself than anything.
I wonder if Legal Eagle knows that a lot of Legal Eagle videos were in the Sora training set because of some discovery request by the Eagle Team, who do specialise in people who have suffered a data breach as the ad proclaims. If that were the case, all I can say is that I would be _very_ interested to watch along with popcorn in hand 🍿
You did Scarlett dirty with that thumbnail.
That was the Scarlett robot from the middle of the video. LOL
This was really interesting, but what I'm most interested in is the non-disparagement agreements that held hostage equity in the company that was part of the compensation, and has interesting implications on whistleblower laws and freedom of speech rights. That's a big legal tangle that I don't know how to parse and I would love to see you do an in-depth dive on that.
Their voices sound alike, but there are only so many voice archetypes.
I've heard voices that sound like almost everyone I know but weren't them.
Wouldn’t this make any impression of a voice illegal too?
That's why the attention on this case is just blowing my mind. The only possible end result is that once someone gets famous, their voice gets 'locked down'. Then anyone else whose voice is even close to theirs is legally barred from profiting from speaking?
@@znconThe case is reliant on the fact that OpenAI reached out to Johanneson and Altman's aforementioned love of the film "her". If it wasn't for those factors then OpenAI would still have their plausible deniability on who's voice they trained their product on. It only makes it more suspicious that they refuse to name their supposed actress.
This case probably will not end up setting too much of a useful precedence because people will simply just not reach out to those who they want to voice-clone beforehand. It would take a spectacular screw up to even be caught in a case like this but that's what Altman has gotten OpenAI into.
@@zncon That’s the problem here since this is what the end result will likely be.
the OpenAi hater in me says "hell yeah!"
my ears say "that's not even close to the same voice..."
I don't think they sound alike enough to justify a lawsuit. Similar maybe but I did not think that was Scarlett Johansson.
That Midler case seems to miss out on an obvious possible motive - they liked the sound. Would the commercial have had a different ruling if it had text on screen saying 'This is not Bette Midler, just a singer that sounds like her'? The case seemed to hinge not on whether it was/sounded like the same voice but on whether people might mistake it for someone famous and that such person has condoned the product. To put in other words, theorectically any possible misunderstanding on the voice for someone famous could put the product in hot water.
There are a lot of people that naturally sound like other people. In fact, I would propose that with 7 billion people on the planet it would be nigh impossible to not have many many people that sound alike any one other person. To then say that only the first person who got famous with that voice can use it seems wildly restrictive. I would not be surprised if this case law gets overriden at some point.
Honestly, if they had put that text on screen, it sounds like there never would have been a lawsuit in the first place since Bette Midler just didn't want to be seen endorsing a product, so if there wasn't an apparent attempt to shoehorn her into a situation she didn't want to be in, odds are good she would have just saved herself the time and expense of litigation if it was clear that she wasn't the one behind this.
For me, the smoking gun is Sam Altman's tweet before the release of GPT-4o, of just: "Her".
The biggest factor in likeness and publicity claims is whether or not the company was trying to deceive the consumer. Reaching out to ScarJo to provide her voice was not public and so consumers would not know. Personally, I think the voice is not identical enough for a slam dunk case, but as soon as Altman publicly compares his product to "Her" he has now drawn the comparison for consumers to see, thus is the deception. That one-word Tweet is going to bite him in the ass.
I'm in your audience. I knew those people. I grew up with Johnny Carson. Keep up the good work!
It's not just a voice. It's a whole character SJ and the director created for the part. The intonation and the pauses, the personality.
Oh hey a video is Devin in it... Finally!
If those soundalike cases have all been successful... how come Family Guy hasn't been sued a million times over? They use soundalikes for celebrities all the time
Because it's an actress in decay trying to stay relevant
Because they aren't trying to sell something by doing so. It's considered parody.
It's parody and they make it clear that it isn't the real actor in the credits.
@@redrick8900 no they don't. They list the actors. They don't list what they played.
@@teelo12000 Think about it. If the real actor isn't in the credits then someone else played them.
I was watching the beginning on my phone and I thought that the second take was the real one and you were sad because of how good it was lmao