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this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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They’re not just deliberately using her voice; they’re deliberately lying about it and bragging about what really happened in public. They’ll pay some nuisance settlement that’s a small fraction of their profit.
That’s how they treat an a list actress. Imagine how they treat everyone else. You don’t get a settlement. You just get fucked.
If you read another article that has more information to it, instead of just this opinion piece, it looks like they hired and paid a voice actress and that it is her natural voice (supposedly).
Which begs the question: Can a voice actor be denied work or denied the ability to have their voice used, if they sound similar to someone else who is more famous?
Intent probably matters a lot here. The actor they hired did not coincidentally have a similar voice. They were hired because they had a similar voice, and the fact that Scarlett Johansson was approached to start with only underscores this.
They were specifically looking for her likeness, for commercial reasons. And when it was denied, they purposely imitated it. That doesn't feel right to me. In the end, they're still trying to use her likeness without permission.
That's different than if they liked a VA's voice and hired them. The voice could be similar, but there was no ill intent nor attempting to copy a likeness. I think they would've been fine if they were even shooting for something like her voice. Where OpenAI fucked up is approaching Johansson to start with, because it shows they didn't want something like her voice or the VA coincidentally sounded similar -- they purposely wanted her likeness, and went behind her back to do it once she denied them.
Then what about impersonators for hire? Or like a Motley Cru cover band?