That's a common retort on HN but it's information free. Judges are at least theoretically and often in practice bound to follow both written law and logic, even if it yields apparently silly outcomes. The prevalence of openly political judgements in the news makes it seem like this isn't the case, but those judgements are newsworthy exactly because they are shocking and outrageous.
If voices being similar to each other is found to be grounds for a successful tort action then it'd establish a legal precedent, and it's very unlikely that precedent would be interpreted as "whoever the judge heard of first wins".
> it's very unlikely that precedent would be interpreted as "whoever the judge heard of first wins"
No, it's whoever's voice is famous. The voice per se isn't valuable, its fame is. Personality rights are precedented [1].
> voices being similar to each other is found to be grounds for a successful tort action then it'd establish a legal precedent
It's not about similarity. It's about property. Johansson developed her voice into a valuable asset. It's valuable because it's Scarlet Johansson's voice.
Tweeting Her explicitly tied it to Johansson, even if that wasn't the case up to that point.
>> It's valuable because it's Scarlet Johansson's voice.
> I think demonstrating that this is a substantial part of the attraction of OpenAI's tech will be difficult.
I think it's totally irrelevant if her voice "is a substantial part of the attraction of OpenAI's tech." What matters is they took something from her that was her valuable property (her likeness). It doesn't matter if what they took makes op 99% of the value or 0.00001%.
It does when it comes to this being a useful topic.
They didn't take her likeness; they recorded someone else. The only claim she has is that someone who sounds like her will add value to their product more than if the person didn't sound like her. At which point the question is: how much value?
(Even that isn't a claim in and of itself, of course, but it might be the basis for a "I'll make people not like you so pay me restitution from your marketing budget to avoid a court case" shakedown.)
> The timeline may not matter as much as OpenAI may think, though. In the 1990s, Tom Waits cited Midler's case when he won a $2.6 million lawsuit after Frito-Lay hired a Waits impersonator to perform a song that "echoed the rhyming word play" of a Waits song in a Doritos commercial. Waits won his suit even though Frito-Lay never attempted to hire the singer before casting the soundalike.
----
> The only claim she has is that someone who sounds like her will add value to their product more than if the person didn't sound like her. At which point the question is: how much value?
That may be relevant when damages are calculated, but I don't think that's relevant to the question of if OpenAI can impersonate her or not.
Yeah, but it's not Scarlett Johansson's voice and therefore not her property. It's one that sounds similar, but is different, and thus belongs to the true voice actress.
> it's not Scarlett Johansson's voice and therefore not her property
It's not her voice. But it may have been intended to sound like her voice. (I believe this less than twenty-four hours ago, but I'm hesitant to grant Altman the benefit of doubt.)
If it were her voice, would you agree that seems distasteful?
> one that sounds similar, but is different, and thus belongs to the true voice actress
They marketed it as her voice when Altman tweeted Her.
> They marketed it as her voice when Altman tweeted Her.
Even that is not open and shut. He tweeted one word. He certainly wanted an association between the product and the movie, but it is a much more specific assertion that that one word demonstrates an intent to associate the product's voice actress with the voice actress who portrayed the comparable product's voice actress in the movie.
If voices being similar to each other is found to be grounds for a successful tort action then it'd establish a legal precedent, and it's very unlikely that precedent would be interpreted as "whoever the judge heard of first wins".