this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023

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submitted 8 months ago by L4s to c/technology

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad | An AI-generated version of Scarlett Johansson’s voice appeared in an online ad without her consent.::Scarlett Johansson is taking legal action against an AI app developer for using her likeness in an online ad without her consent.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 8 months ago (5 children)

I'd be amazed if it was actually her and not her lawyer/agency
Yeah fuck em, shit like this without consent should be (/is?) illegal

[–] anon_8675309 98 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Well duh. Of course you go through your legal team. That’s what they’re for.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 8 months ago

It's her voice and she's the client. The lawyers can't file without her okaying it. She's also a pretty solid businessperson, she took on Disney and won.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

It is. Something something, using their likeness (in a commercial context).

[+] [email protected] -19 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Imitating celebrities is usually done for satire and very much protected free speech.

Why should it be illegal in this case? I can see that the rich and famous would be able to profit from licensing and endorsement deals, but what's the public benefit?

ETA: So many downvotes. Where did all the eat-the-rich-people go, all of a sudden?

[–] Doug7070 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There's a very obvious distinction between satire, I.E. imitating a public figure to make a joke about them, and using their likeness for marketing, I.E. making it seem as if that public figure endorses a product/service/etc.

One is legally protected free speech, the other is illegally misusing a person's likeness, and regardless of whether or not they are a celebrity should be protected against because it is deceptive to the public and violates the person's inherent right to control of their own likeness.

Regardless of your views on celebrity in general and the merit of famous figures in society, it's quite clear that this kind of AI mimicry needs to be stomped out fast and early, or else we will rapidly end up in a situation where shady scam artists and massive corporate interests will freely use AI zombies of popular personalities, living or dead, to hawk their wares with impunity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

That's a rather odd reply. I don't think the ideology you express is very common. If you were to tell me more, I would read it.

I did not give any views on celebrities. I simply asked what the public benefit was. Do I infer correctly that, to you, the public benefit is beside that point, but that your view on this is determined by your views of celebrities?

Please note that fraud is criminal, which makes it hard to see what exactly you would want to be done about "shady scam artists".

Note also that "massive corporations" can only benefit here if there is a kind of property right, similar to a trademark or a copyright. EG The Disney corporation still owns the rights to "Mickey Mouse", created in 1928. That's the same year in which Fleming discovered Penicillin, which is owned by no one. So if you have a problem with "massive corporations" extracting wealth, here, you very much need to rethink your position.

[+] [email protected] -23 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

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[–] SlapnutsGT 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The ad itself makes it clear it’s impersonating her.

[+] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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[–] SlapnutsGT 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I do not and good luck finding it. Searches are nothing but articles or video news broadcasts about the ad but I haven’t been able to find the actual ad.

[+] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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[–] ericisshort 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There’s no way they’d have a case unless the voice impersonated her, so I’d be shocked if the commercial didn’t present it as her, but I couldn’t find a copy of it online either. I did hear the fake Tom Hanks ad a while back, and it definitely claimed to be him, so this sort of throng has happened before. Also, there would be no point in using her voice unless the audience thinks it’s her.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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[–] ericisshort 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sure, in that hypothetical, there would be no case, but that would make her legal team absolute idiots for thinking that simple mimicry would be a case they could win. And there is absolutely no reason to think they are idiots since Johansson doesn’t have a history of frivolous lawsuits or losing her legal battles. She went up against hackers stealing her nudes as well as Disney and won both cases, so I’m going to give her legal team the benefit of the doubt here.

[–] Dran_Arcana 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Fwiw I disagreed with you but upvoted for making a reasoned argument. We do need to drop that reddit mentality of downvote what you disagree with. IMHO you should downvote things that are either demonstrably false, or low-effort.

That said, I think both voice/image impersonation individually would fit the bill for "intent to deceive". I'd be surprised if it didn't already have a lot of legal precedent in the realm of advertising.

https://casetext.com/case/waits-v-frito-lay-inc

The tom watts case is the only one I'm aware of off the top of my head, but the TL/Dr is they tried to license a song of his to use, he refused, so they just hired an impersonator to sing in his style instead. He sued Frito lay and won.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago

Ngl, I only downvoted you for bitching and whining about being downvoted

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 36 points 8 months ago

The developer is called "convert software", which is a pretty vague name. This developer/team could be anywhere in the world.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Joan Is Awful coming soon to a reality near you

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Great episode.

[–] bappity 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

good for her, sucks this sort of stuff has to be dealt with already. A.I. tech has developed wayyy faster than I thought

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

AI...coming for a job near you...

[–] bappity 2 points 8 months ago

we could've advanced AI for much cooler stuff but the first things we went for were voices and fukken art... wtf

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Scarlett Johansson is taking legal action against an AI app developer for using her name and likeness in an online ad, according to a report from Variety.

As reported by Variety, the 22-second ad showed Johansson behind the scenes while filming Black Widow, where she actually says “What’s up guys?

It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me.” But then, the ad transitions away from Johansson, while an AI-generated voice meant to sound like the actress states: “It’s not limited to avatars only.

At the very bottom of the ad, Variety reports that Convert Software — the developer behind the app — included text that reads: “Images produced by Lisa AI.

It has nothing to do with this person.” Representatives for Johansson tell Variety that the actress was never a spokesperson for the app and that her attorney, Kevin Yorn, “handled the situation in a legal capacity.”

Neither Yorn nor Convert Software responded to The Verge’s request for comment about the nature of the legal action.

The original article contains 311 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 46%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Etterra 15 points 8 months ago

I hope it wasn't some shitty Chinese mobile game. They rip off stuff constantly and just keep getting away with it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There are people out there who sound a lot like SJ and you could probably clone their voice a lot cheaper. I worked with one and it was always uncanny.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Feel badly for her. First she had to take the studio to court over Black Widow and now this.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

I don't really. It isn't good these thanga happen, but it's not like she needs to do anything. She just pays her lawyers a small portion of her fortune and she gets more money. I feel bad for the people who actually need the work getting screwed, which this will hopefully set a precedent for.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Said AI app must have been capitalising on the fact that Scarlet Johansson voiced an AI in a movie before. Lol.

[–] quaddo 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Man, I misunderstood the headline. I thought the AI had created a likeness of her voice, and SJ was going after them for that.

Which begs the question, just how unique are our voices? There's being distinct, and then there's being literally one of a kind.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago

Voice alone? It might be very difficult to claim you have a unique voice unless you’re Gilbert Gottfried or Bobcat Goldthwait. The issue in this ad was that it showed a real clip of Johansson saying ‘follow me’ before the images cut to something else and the AI-copy Johansson voice continued. The fake voice was heavily insinuated to be Johansson because it picked up where a real clip of Johansson left off.

It would be very hard to prove a person intended to mimic a specific person when creating an AI voice unless it’s accompanied by corroborating imagery.

[–] quaddo 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Very true, and along the lines of what I was thinking.

But it wouldn't surprise me if there were a way to establish a voice print. In fact, isn't that already a thing? Even if it is a little rough around the edges, it wouldn't surprise me if we were even closer to a higher reliability than thought.

With or without that, consider the copyright infringement suits for someone wanting to protect their song, melody, or whatever. Someone could poke at the 8 keys of a toy piano, and if a music artist's legal team felt it sounded close enough to the original? The ol' beatdown-by-seeking-damages trick if not a cease and desist order.

Anyway. If someone has enough money and too much time, they'll make a case out of anything.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Isn't the last part the current DMCA process in YouTube?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Has she heard the ChatGPT voice app? Sounds a lot like her also.

Unsurprising given she was the voice of AI in that terrible movie "Her".

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Futile.