The Volokh Conspiracy
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Begun the Clone War Has, Here as to Cloning of Voice-Over Actors' Voices
From today's decision by Judge Paul Oetken in Lehrman v. Lovo, Inc. (S.D.N.Y.):
[Voice-over actors] Paul Lehrman and Linnea Sage bring this putative class action against .. Lovo, Inc. … alleging that Lovo used artificial intelligence … to synthesize and sell unauthorized "clones" of their voices….
Ultimately the Court concludes that, for the most part, Plaintiffs have not stated cognizable claims under federal trademark and copyright law…. [But] claims for misappropriation of a voice, like the ones here, may be properly asserted under Sections 50 and 51 of the New York Civil Rights Law [New York's right of publicity statute], which, unlike copyright and trademark law, are tailored to balance the unique interests at stake. Plaintiffs also adequately state claims under state consumer protection law and for ordinary breach of contract….
After hearing what appeared to be Lehrman's voice on Deadline Strike Talk, Plaintiffs sought to learn more about Lovo. Lehrman found that Lovo "had been marketing [the clone of his voice] as part of its subscription service under the stage name 'Kyle Snow,'" and that it was this "Kyle Snow" voice that he had heard on the podcast…. Sage discovered that Lovo had created a clone of her voice named "Sally Coleman" that was available to Lovo's subscribers. Lovo also marketed its product using "side-by-side" comparisons of Sage's original audio recordings … and the "cloned version of her voice." …
According to Plaintiffs, the Kyle Snow and Sally Coleman voices are not synthetic creations, composites, or amalgams, built from a multiplicity of input voices, but direct copies of their specific voices. In support, Plaintiffs point to public statements Lovo and its executives have made describing Lovo's software. In such statements, Lovo has claimed that its product "reproduce[s]" actors' voices in a way that is "practically indistinguishable from the 'real' voice….
The opinion is over 20,000 words long, so I won't try to summarize it here, but here's an excerpt from the right of publicity discussion:
While "[t]he statute does not define trade or advertising purposes," New York courts give those terms their ordinary meanings. "Advertising purposes has been defined as use in, or as part of, an advertisement or solicitation for patronage of a particular product or service, and trade purposes involves use which would draw trade to the firm." That said, the statute was drafted so as not to conflict with the First Amendment, and therefore does not reach newsworthy uses or matters of public interest.
Here, Plaintiffs adequately allege use in both advertising and trade, and Lovo does not raise a First Amendment, newsworthiness, or public interest defense. Whether or not the solicitation of investors itself counts as an "advertisement," the function of the "investor presentation, which was later posted publicly online, is plausibly understood as promoting Lovo's underlying product. The same goes for the use of Lehrman's voice in tutorials and promotional articles posted online.
Moreover, even if the voices were not used in formal advertisements or solicitations, they were clearly used for commercial purposes, and to draw trade to the firm. It is plausible to infer that, by illustrating the value of the product and helping show prospective customers how to use it, Lovo used its publicly posted tutorials to increase the appeal of its software, acquire subscribers, and retain subscribers it already had. Plaintiffs allege even that Lehrman's cloned voice was Lovo's default product and one of its self-described "best" voices….
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As (in retirement) a budding Indie cinematographer I have seen a massive increase in AI being used in films. In some ways I am reminded of PGP, which stands for Pretty Good Privacy, the horse is out of the barn. I suspect this may explain why the court produced such a lengthy product. There are already so many FX products spread over the internet that the court's finding are moot before they are written.
This judge uses entirely too many commas in their writing. An aside of course, but still. You can make this opinion better by cutting it in half and won’t lose any info.
It might have been better if an AI LLM wrote it.
Hugh Fraser, British actor, played Hercule Poirot's sidekick Captain Hastings in the BBC television version of Agatha Christie's stories. He also did quite a few of the audiobooks of the same stories. There is now a Youtube channel of audio readings of many classic detective stories, voiced by a 'Jason Fraser,' whose icon image looks remarkably like Hugh Fraser. And the voice sounds quite a bit like Hugh's.
Training an AI to mimic a specific voice seems like an admission that the voice is unique and valuable.
Seems like they could get an employee to record samples if they aren’t trying to mimic a known artist.
A grammar note. While Yoda put the object of the sentence and the main part of the compound verb in the first part of the sentence, before the comma, he always used a subject before the auxiliary part of the compound verb in the second part after the sentence, after the comma. So what Professor Volokh wrote is not correct Yoda-speak grammar.
Perhaps “Begun the clone war, it has.
Or “Begun, the clone war has.”
Professor Volokh has a deficiency and owes on his syn tax.
Voice cloning is a subject of collective bargaining agreements. But not every business is bound by one.
So exactly how does a court determine that a very long string of ones and zeros is a clone of a particular human voice, and not a fully synthesized hallucination of a LLM?
In the immediate case, they all but admitted that it was in their promotional literature.
If somebody just had a catalogue of random voices, and one of them happened to be remarkably similar to a particular voice actor, but none of their promotional literature pointed out the resemblance, it would be a lot harder, because it could have happened by accident.