Scarlett Johansson’s AI Legal Challenge Sets Stage for Actors’ Battle with Tech Giants
SAG-AFTRA and voice actors have filed lawsuits, while SAG-AFTRA has rallied lawmakers to prevent AI companies from misappropriating the likenesses of their members.
Winston Cho
May 22, 2024, 12:10 AM
Artists were first to sue. Then authors hit generative artificial intelligence companies with a volley of lawsuits, followed by publications. As battle lines over the use of AI tools in Hollywood are being drawn, actors may be the next group of creators to open another front in what could be an industry-defining legal battle against AI firms over the use of copyrighted works and personal data to power their human-mimicking chatbots.
Scarlett Johansson, who refused to license her voice to OpenAI on Monday, threatened legal action. OpenAI reportedly asked the actress to voice “Sky”, its latest AI system. She declined but said it didn’t deter chief executive Sam Altman.
She wrote, “When I first heard the demo, I was shocked and angry that Mr. Altman pursued a voice so similar to mine, that even my closest friends and media outlets couldn’t tell the difference.”
Johansson claimed that the similarity between her and Altman was deliberate, pointing out Altman’s tweet “Her”, a reference to Johansson’s role as a AI assistant in Her who develops an intimate relationship with an individual. She hired a legal advisor who sent two letters to OpenAI asking them to explain the process they used to create the “Sky voice”. A person familiar with the matter tells The Hollywood Reporter that the two letters Johansson referred to in her statement were written by her. They were sent after Altman’s firm released its demo, and made multiple legal claims.
This source claims that “they wouldn’t have been able to do this without the letters.” This wasn’t a simple ‘What is going on there?’ letter. It was more aggressive.”
OpenAI has dropped the name “Sky” but is still facing legal challenges over its technology.
The threat of legal action follows the filing of a class action against Berkeley-based AI company LOVO in New York Federal Court accusing the firm of stealing voices and profiting from them, including those of A list talent like Johansson and Ariana Grande, and Conan O’Brien. This is believed to be the first case against an AI company for using likenesses in order to train an AI. It also marks a growing divide between creators, and companies that are alleged to have indiscriminately gathered troves copyrighted data and works to fuel their technologies.
OpenAI’s mistake couldn’t come at a more convenient time for SAG-AFTRA. AI services have exploded, allowing users to copy members’ likenesses and images without their consent or compensation. In the absence of federal legislation covering the use AI to mimic actors’ likenesses, the union has been lobbying legislators for a federal law on the right of publicity. The void has been filled by a patchwork of state rights of publicity laws, but OpenAI’s alleged theft Johansson’s voice highlights the limitations of the legal landscape.
The incident shows the importance of protecting one’s voice in this age of AI. A SAG-AFTRA representative says that it’s no longer science fiction, but science fact to easily clone a vocal. If you’re a professional actor looking to protect your reputation or an individual who wants to protect the words that are attributed to you, federal protection is needed now.
SAG-AFTRA played a role in the introduction of three bills in Congress, including two that would establish federal voice and likeness right and another which would criminalize deep-faked nonconsensual sexual images. The union is also working to discourage AI from being used in production pipelines. New York is considering legislation to bar tax credits if AI is used as a substitute for labor. Tennessee passed a law in March that was the first of its kind to prohibit AI from mimicking a human voice. Violations are classified as criminal offenses.
The union claims that the training of AI systems using members’ likenesses is a violation to their rights. The issue will be decided by a court.
The public clash between an A-lister and OpenAI demonstrates the growing divide between tech companies encroaching on Hollywood, and creators that fear being replaced by tools they may unintentionally have helped create. Many people are growing to distrust AI companies. They believe that Altman’s firm is not operating in good conscience.
OpenAI CTO Mira murati stated in a livestream broadcast that the voice assistant was not meant to sound exactly like the actress. Before Johansson released her version of the events, OpenAI said in a post on its blog that they “believed AI voices shouldn’t deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinct voice”, while omitting the fact that the actress had refused to license her own voice.
OpenAI executives refused to answer any questions about whether their text-to-video software Sora had been trained using YouTube videos. Murati said that the company relied on “publicly-available data and licensed data.” The decision was made to maintain a competitive edge over other companies. The company has been sued several times by authors who claim it used their copyrighted works, most of which were downloaded off shadow library sites.
OpenAI’s actions have a distinct Silicon Valley ethos: Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
If they can do it to Ms. Johansson imagine what they will do to a 23-year old screenwriter just starting out, says Justin Nelson. “Or some actor that just moved to Hollywood, and has nowhere near the same resume” as actress.
According to legal experts who were consulted by , THR, OpenAI would face a difficult battle in court, even though Johansson has no intention of suing now that OpenAI has dropped “Sky”, essentially giving her an injunction, without the need to file a suit.
It may be helpful to look at a lawsuit filed by Bette Midler in response to Ford’s “The Yuppie Campaign”, a series commercials that used an impersonator who imitated her voice. Midler, like Johansson was also asked to sing in the ads but declined. Ford then hired a voice impersonator to perform one of Midler’s songs in the advertisement. According to court documents, “a number” of people told her that the voice “sounded exactly like” her after it aired.
Midler filed an appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after the federal judge who was overseeing the case awarded summary judgment to Ford. The judge found that Ford had no rights to prevent her from using her voice. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ford profited from the fact that Ford’s court found that Ford’s voice was distinctive and a part of her identity. This ruling gives Ford the right to use uncopyrightable identifiers such as voice when an individual is famous for it.
Ford’s reasons for hiring a Midler-impersonator were crucial to the court’s decision. Justices asked why Midler was asked to sing when her voice wasn’t valuable and why an impersonator had been instructed to mimic the singer.
Purvi Albers, an intellectual property lawyer, says that OpenAI’s solicitation to Johansson for her services is crucial in determining whether or not the company has violated Johansson’s publicity rights. She adds, “It was clear that they were going for this voice.” They wanted to capitalize on her husky vocals.
The bottom line: It doesn’t matter that Johansson didn’t use her voice to train “Sky”, as long as it was the intention to capture the performance of the Spike Jonze movie.
A lawsuit would have argued for her right to publicity, privacy rights and perhaps a federal trademark over the potential confusion that consumers might feel she is associated with OpenAI. One person who is familiar with the situation stated that the letter “certainly made references beyond the simple right of publicity”.
Altman may have also violated the rights of Annapurna which produced His if he wanted to mimic Johansson’s performance.
The specter AI casts an intimidating shadow in the entertainment industry. In a January study of 300 Hollywood leaders, three-fourths said that AI tools were supporting the elimination, reduction or consolidating of jobs in their companies. Nearly 204,000 jobs will be affected over the next three-year period.
Paul Skye Lehrman has been a voiceover actor for over 10 years and is suing a startup AI. He said that he had received roughly 50% less work in the last year. He said that it’s not just that he is getting fewer job opportunities, but also that his “reputation has been degraded.”
He added, “My voice literally says things I would not say to brands with which I wouldn’t work in places where I wouldn’t want to be located.”
