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Scarlett Johansson Warned OpenAI To Not Use Her Voice 241

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Actress Scarlett Johansson's legal team has sent two letters to OpenAI, demanding the company disclose how it developed an AI personal assistant voice that the actress claims sounds uncannily similar to her own. The controversy was prompted after OpenAI held a live demonstration of the voice, dubbed "Sky," which many observers compared to Johansson's voice in the 2013 film "Her."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had approached Johansson months prior and as recently as two days before the event, proposing to license her voice for the new ChatGPT voice assistant, but she declined the offer, she said. Johansson said she was "shocked and angered" at the similarity between the AI voice and her own, stating, "in a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity." OpenAI denied any connection between Johansson and the "Sky" voice, claiming it was developed from the voice of another actress. The company paused using the voice in its products on Monday.

Scarlett Johansson Warned OpenAI To Not Use Her Voice More | Reply

Scarlett Johansson Warned OpenAI To Not Use Her Voice

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  • If she feels that strongly about clarity (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aldousd666 ( 640240 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @10:10AM (#64487625) Journal
    If she really feels like she needs to make this clear as a legal precedent, let her sue, and lose, and waste her own money. Yes this is a PR disaster. Yes OpenAI should have known better, but lets look at the facts: They recorded a sound-alike BEFORE asking her to use her voice. So they just have some voice actress recorded who happens to sound like ScarJo. So far nothing illegal. Then they ask her if they can record her actual voice and use it. She says no. They don't. They use the other voice actress's voice instead. Still nothing illegal or even wrong. She gets upset that it sounds too much like her, and they pull it down. Even though they are under no obligation to do so, because it's not her voice. She doesn't own the other actress's voice. But they took it down anyway, as a gesture of goodwill. I'm sorry, this case is a loser for ScarJo if she wants to sue. That's why she won't.

    • Lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @10:23AM (#64487655)

      But they took it down anyway, as a gesture of goodwill. I'm sorry, this case is a loser for ScarJo if she wants to sue. That's why she won't.

      I mostly agree with your assessment, the only caveat I'd add is that it wouldn't be just Johansson suing, but, most likely, SAG, along with a high-priced law firm that specializes in actor's likeness lawsuits, suing under New York's right of publicity laws. I know this because it's already happened.

      https://www.hollywoodreporter.... [hollywoodreporter.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        I recall reading about this earlier, and there are some precedents for this, but they have something that absent here. In them company sued clearly tried to misrepresent who's voice it was being played (usually in ads). The goal was clearly to generate an image of a celebrity's voice.

        Here that seems entirely absent.

        And the lawsuit you link talks about a contract violation. Where actor had an actual contract for academic usage of his voice only and got paid for that, and they instead used it as a default voi

    • The entire point of this AI is not having to sample actors voices.

      • Re:If she feels that strongly about clarity (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @11:12AM (#64487797)

        The entire point of this AI is not having to sample actors voices.

        The point here is to closely approximate a celebrity voice and then profit handsomely from it. The entire business case of these AI Bros do seem to be predicated on mass harvesting other results of peoples hard work without permission or compensations and then banking all the profits for themselves. On the plus side, Ayn Rand would have approved of such staggering levels of selfishness and entitlement.

    • If she felt that strongly about it, she would have her vocal chords currently insured for millions. Does she, or is every other Scarlett look-alike and celebrity voice impressionist she hasn’t ever thought about much less tried to sue out of existence, about to gift-wrap the Streisand Effect her attitude so desperately deserves.

      Hearing multi-millionaire professionals bitching about the highest form of paying a compliment in their profession, tends to be quite hypocritical. It’s like blaming yo

      • Re:Validating her strength. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @11:26AM (#64487845)

        There is a lot of precedent for this though, someone doing an impression personally with their human vocal system cannot be copyrighted. Rich Little made an entire career off that concept. Two voice actors did every single celebrity impression on The Critic. It's also noted by long precedent that the actual actor is credited as the voice and it's fairly simple for anyone to know if what they heard was the person or an impersonator. Many actors do in fact insure aspects of their likeness as well as the general SAG protections, maybe ScarJo already does, that wouldn't exactly be public.

        Question here is this is not a human who did the work of developing that skill but a machine that is built to use that voice to profit. It's pretty obvious Altman kinda boned himself by asking at all and his post on May 13 of just the word her [x.com] kinda establishes a mens rea for his thinking even if the voice is different.

        I sorta hope this goes to court, will be an interesting case and will set an important legal precedent.

    • They use the other voice actress's voice instead.

      I thought the same thing you did before, they used some other actress so who cares if it sounds like SJ?

      But between the contact with SJ and OpenAI pulling back the voice, that sort of indicates something is there.

      I said this as a joke in a previous Slashdot story, but now those two things have me wondering - what if there is no "other voice actress"? What if that Sky voice is training AI on SJ's voice and then asking it to say whatever?

      If it is from another

      • Did they take the other actress's voice and run it through an SJ filter to make a better match?

        They bungled it, they could have hired Tara Strong or Grey DeLisle and gotten any voice they wanted. Or multiple any voices they wanted.

        SJ doesn't even have that great of a voice. Claudia Jesse has a more relaxing voice, and I think she's done voice work as well.

        On the other hand, Ashley Tisdale in Candace mode would be the wrong choice, although it might just be appropriate for an AI that will certainly tattle on

    • "They recorded a sound-alike BEFORE asking her to use her voice."

      Did the choose that actress because she sounded like ScarJo or did they just pick a voice over actress who they later noticed happened to sound like her?

      • Doesn't matter.

        It is the other woman's voice not SJ.

        It is not a crime to sound like someone else and cash in on that.

        • Not at all but that's all in regards to a human performer and even if it's an impression I believe it's considered a "performance" under the law. I suppose in this case would a computer algorithm be under those some rules, is it doing a "performance"? I think that'll be up to the courts.

          I think also if you can do an impression it's still illegal if you use it deceitfully, you can't go around tricking people into thinking you are that person to defraud things.

          "I'm telling you Marge this will work. They'll

          • In this case OpenAI never said or implied it was her
            No one saw that movie so that's not the basis for claiming anything.
            She has suffered no measurable harm.
            They pulled it right away when she whined about it
            The voice is of another person, not her

            Best of luck to her lawyers on this one.

        • Likeness has precedent - Crispin Glover.
          If the court determines the company deliberately made a product to resemble ' her' portrayal in a movie then the judgement may indeed favour Scarlett.

          • Good luck to her lawyers proving:
            1) it sounds like her
            2) it was intended to sound like her
            3) she suffered some measurable harm
            4) anyone saw that movie, hahahaha

            How many minutes was the other woman's voice online before they pulled it?
            Where did they say, "This voice is SJ just like from that movie no one saw!"?

        • It is not a crime to sound like someone else and cash in on that.

          It is a civil law violation to sound like someone else and cash in by trying to create the impression that actually is that someone. Impersonators always make it clear that they are impersonators.

    • ...lets look at the facts: They recorded a sound-alike BEFORE asking her to use her voice....

      Do you have a reference for that? The article says

      OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had approached Johansson months prior ...proposing to license her voice for the new ChatGPT voice assistant, but she declined the offer, she said.

      Don't see any mention of a different voice actor's voice having already been recorded before they approached her.

    • Re:If she feels that strongly about clarity (Score:5, Interesting)

      by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @11:38AM (#64487893) Journal

      "They recorded a sound-alike BEFORE asking her to use her voice. So they just have some voice actress recorded who happens to sound like ScarJo. So far nothing illegal."

      Under California law, soundalikes (pre-AI) are covered under the right to likeness.

      https://www.authorsalliance.or... [authorsalliance.org]

      So actually, not legal, if the intent was to take advantage of Scarlett Johansson's likeness. I believe one exception would be for parody under the "transformative use" clause.

      https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/... [fordham.edu]

      Establishing that they reached out to Scarlett Johansson in an attempt to get her voice, in the context of their trying to tie their current product, either directly or indirectly to the movie Her, starring Scarlett Johansson, establishes intent. The intent: that they were trying to consciously tie the movie and the character depiction of the fictional AI, played by Scarlett Johansson, and that a reasonable person, not knowing that Scarlett Johansson had turned them down, might assume that she had given permission to them to use her likeness.

      This is my understanding of the situation, I am not a lawyer.

    • You seem to think of law as dumb, inflexible and static, just like code is. It is not.

      That's why there are courts: to rule on corner cases like "if I make a machine sounding just like someone in particular, is it the same as using their likeness?" And "can I do anything I want with someone's likeness?". And then "is it free speech for me to make that likeness say or do things that person does not want to?". And "am I causing damages to the person by doing this?"

      These questions are critical for people earn

    • First of all, that's wrong on the law. There is definite precedent that you can't imitate an actress' performance for commercial means. In order for it to be fair use it has to have significant artistic merit behind the imitation performance. It's the difference between cosplay and publishing your fanfic for money. Only one of those is a protected activity.

      Second, you're almost certainly wrong on how the voice assistant was made. OpenAI is known to have illegally scraped training data from myriad sources.

    • >> They recorded a sound-alike BEFORE asking her to use her voice

      Cite for that claim?

      >> they took it down anyway, as a gesture of goodwill

      Maybe it was because of "legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAl, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the ‘Sky’ voice.”

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Njovich ( 553857 )

      If she really feels like she needs to make this clear as a legal precedent, let her sue, and lose, and waste her own money.

      Maybe she will lose after a long lawsuit, maybe she will win. However OpenAI will definitely be the loser, as discovery will aim at proving the intent of OpenAI which means massive access to their emails and internal comunications. We will get to see a ton of internal dirt from OpenAI, regardless of who will win. So yeah, bring on the lawsuit.

    • Also interesting is that to her their pitch was that her voice would "help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI." Which sounds amazingly creepy. Next someone will try to get a celebrity to convince the public that smoking is healthy, fentanyl is good for international trade, and to please get an iris scan soon.

    • But they took it down anyway, as a gesture of goodwill.

      I am not sure about the "gesture of goodwill" thing. they probably just thought they could lose a suit and set a bad (for them) precedent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cob666 ( 656740 )
      Tell that to Bette Midler or Tom Waites

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lobo42 ( 723131 )

      > They recorded a sound-alike BEFORE asking her to use her voice.

      Isn't the central allegation here that, in fact, they had been asking to use her voice (and she had been declining) for some time?

      Also, if they thought the voice was completely unrelated to ScarJo's, why did they seek her permission repeatedly?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khb ( 266593 )

      If she really feels like she needs to make this clear as a legal precedent,.They recorded a sound-alike BEFORE asking her to use her voice..

      Unless the facts turn out to be that they leveraged actual recordings of her voice from her films. I have no inside information, do you? What basis do you have for asserting that they hired a sound-alike?

      Even if it is the latter, I don’t know that there isn’t existing case-law (IANAL). I do recall HarleyDavidson defended their trademark sound against Japanese clones (and succeeded). It may well be the case that actors likenesses and sound are inherently protected (or at least protectable, perhap

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      They use the other voice actress's voice instead. Still nothing illegal or even wrong

      Now consider this scenario: ScarJo's capricious complaint about the voice causes openAI to Drop the voice And Cancel the deal with the new actress. As a result, the new Voice Actress gets upset and files a tortious interference suit against ScarJo.

      Let's assume the Licensing process would involve OAI paying the new actress a Usage fee over time based on how many times the model is used. As a result, the new Actress is

  • Michael Caine did not sue (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tinkerton ( 199273 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @10:34AM (#64487677)

    He tells in an interview his voice, actually a voice very much like his and with his mannerisms is everywhere, satnav, birthday cards ad so on and there is nothing he can do about it.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HBI ( 10338492 )

      I doubt he tried hard.

    • Then again, he was selected for movies and became famous partly because his diction fit a widely-shared sensibility of what sounds nice. Not because it was the most unique.

  • Not a good look... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @10:40AM (#64487689) Journal
    I'm in no position to say how it will shake down in court; but it seems like a bad look that OpenAI spent so much time trying to secure Johansson's agreement prior to releasing the feature; then released it despite failing to.

    OpenAI has absolutely not tended in the direction of being over-cautious when doing rights clearance; they've been quite bold about the "no, anything we do to anything is transformative" theory of the copyright implications of how they've assembled their training set and what comes out; and never you mind those verbatim bits they are just a fabrication by our enemies.

    Unless the asking was some weird, pathetic, Altman-things-Johansson-will-be-flattered thing; it can only be assumed that they asked because they believed that the permission was actually relevant; which seems like a bad sign for their chances.

    The speed with which they folded under pressure, despite allegedly having an infringement-free version totally based on someone who did authorize the use of their voice who just sounds kind of similar, also doesn't suggest much internal confidence in the strength of their position.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      >> I'm in no position to say how it will shake down in court.

      If I was the judge I'd simply side-by-side some phrases said both by Johansson and the voice actress they supposedly used.

  • She's probably going to land a huge pay day now, much moreso than if Altman hadn't involved himself. Doing it two days before is dangerously stupid, it's defacto an admission of guilt and removes your plausible deniability. Altman destroyed OpenAI's bargaining position.

    Does Altman need a handler like Elon?

  • I'm sure they have a Scrooge McDuck room.
  • How many billions of people are there, and what are the chances two people could sound exactly the same? Just because you made a career with your voice doesn't mean others with a similar voice owe you anything. At all.

  • ...as to why a "feature" should be offered, much less legally allowed, to fake someone's voice.

    Give me one justification.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      Your assumption is that they intentionally faked her voice. I agree that it seems likely, but I'd like to play devil's advocate for a moment:
      There are certain visual things like the golden ratio that are innately pleasing to humans. As a musician myself I can tell you that the same things exist in the audio world: certain sounds, vocal attributes and stylings that the human ear innately finds pleasing.
      ( It's partially why almost every Gen Z/Millenial female singer sounds like Taylor Swift. 30 years ago near

  • I almost pity the fools.

  • Sorry, but as I posted in the previous thread on this subject:

    There are probably millions of women who "sound like Scarlett Johanssen".

    She quite reasonably owns all rights to HER VOICE.
    Not "every voice that's even slightly like hers".

    (FWIW this will ultimately be the death of any sort of voice-actor IP fight vs AI that's coming because voices aren't THAT different. Impersonators are a thing, and any studio that doesn't want to pay $100k for Tom Hanks' voice can pay $1000 for a "Tom Hanks Impersonator's Voic

  • Is her voice unique among everyone on the planet? How can she claim a voice is hers? Next she will claim ownership of a blood type.

  • there will never be a unique voice for AI, it will always sound like someone. I foresee a lot of lawsuits over this, especially from celebrities.

  • precedent exists in favor of Scarlet here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SethJohnson ( 112166 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @03:43PM (#64488519) Homepage Journal
    This is a good article on this topic [grr.com] providing multiple relevant precedents. Here's just one:

    In a pivotal case on the right of publicity, acclaimed singer Bette Midler brought suit against Ford Motor Co. for the unauthorized use of her voice in a television commercial for automobiles. In Midler v Ford, Bette Midler specifically refused an offer to use her voice in a Ford commercial, so they hired another singer to mimic Midler's voice in an edited version of Midler's song, "Do You Want to Dance". The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit explained that a person's voice is "one of the most palpable ways identity is manifested" and held that in a claim for the appropriation of a person's voice, to recover under California law the voice plaintiff must prove three elements: (1) a voice; (2) that is distinctive; and (3) that is widely known.

    The case was remanded to the district court for trial, where the jury found in favor of Midler, and she was awarded $400,000 in damages for the market rate of her performance had she done the commercial.

    Scarlet Johansson would have easily achieved these requirements and the payout would have been much more spectacular than what Bette Midler received.

  • Easy to prove (Score:3)

    by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2024 @05:07PM (#64488737) Homepage
    If he is right about having used a different actress to teach the system, that should be easy to prove. If it sounds like Johansson, but the used actress also sounds like her, then Johansson can't do anything about it. She can't stop the other actress from performing or selling her likeness, as long as can be proven that it wasn't Johansson's actual voice/likeness which was used.

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