Ari Cohn: But that's not how rights of publicity work

Remember when everyone was absolutely certain about the thing that totally happened and exemplified everything wrong with "AI culture" that ended up being...not what happened? www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records showwww.washingtonpost.com A different actress was hired to voice OpenAI’s “Sky” months before CEO Sam Altman contacted Scarlett Johansson, according to documents and the actress’s agent.

You know, the argument that it's a different voice didn't work so great when a certain company hired a backup singer for Bette Midler and instructed her to sound so similar that listeners basically couldn't tell the difference. Why should this be viewed any differently?

Well, for atarters, very different facts. The singer was singing a song Midler had previously recorded.

And in this situation, a vocalist was hired to perform a vocal affectation Johansson had previously recorded for film and Altman admitted to being a huge fan of and literally reached out to her about replicating. The medium hardly matters when the action (not accepting no + copycatting) is the same.

I don't think it's "part of her identity" in the way the 9th Circuit found to be the case for a singer.

Voice *is* part of your identity, and this is a clear effort to profit off of and use her creative labor and value, just with a voice actor instead of singer. It's also a violation of consent, from a company lead by a guy accused of not being candid and regularly critiqued over copyright attitudes.

The court did not say that voice is automatically part of everyone's identity. That's not how this works.

This is such a ludicrous assertion to make in an era where AI voice mimics are literally scamming family members. People can be recognized and identified as the individuals they are by their voice, both written and spoken. That's a feature of personal identity.

But that's not how rights of publicity work

But, but, but... Which publicity rights don't work like that? Bc in my part of the media ecosystem, it's considered standard ethical practice to accept "no" as "no," and not use someone's identity or likeness in a context they did not consent to or in a manner that misrepresents them or their work.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but what is lawful is not necessarily ethical or morally correct.

You're not bearing any news, though - just taking the OpenAI company line at face value? I'm more than aware the law is not an ethical bellwether, and that it lags behind the tech - but there is a reason identity thieves use people's voices for phone scams. This issue also has relevant precedent.

"Identifiable by something" is not sufficient to render that thing protectable by rigbt of publicity. I think that's the piece you may be missing.

I'm just going to leave this here, since it contains information you may be missing: The court wrote, "what they sought was an attribute of her identity." bsky.app/profile/gbbr...

If copyright law destroys the AI industry remember who to thank

You might stop to consider that this snippet does not represent the full context of the decision. Perhaps before telling a lawyer that they are wrong, question how confident you are in what you think you understand.

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