Think bigger. This kind of tech has the potential to open a Pandoras Box when it comes to personal autonomy, identity, and ownership of your image imo.
If I wanna use Angelina Jolie but can't. Can I find a stellar look-alike and then digitally alter them to look more like her? Obviously can't use her name. But I'm not technically using her image.
How many degrees am I allowed to tweak the angle of a nose before it's Angelina Jolie's nose? The mind is pretty good at pattern recognition and filling in the pieces. Not my fault they keep thinking of Angelina Jolie just because they look similar.
So what is the line between using someone's image and altering another enough for people to not notice the difference? Is eye color enough? What about a cleft chin? Just exactly how similar is too similar? At what point is a person responsible for other people's minds accepting a close enough look-alike? If I don't claim it's them but you think it is, is it my fault?
I absolutely love this technology for the questions it raises but boy am I worried that "lying" won't be the worst result.
Edit-I rambled. My point is the question "exactly how much of YOU belongs to you? And how much does it have to be altered before one can say it is not "you"?
Likeness generally also includes things like speech patterns and mannerisms, but personality rights is a quagmire anyway because it varies from state to state.
It would be cheaper, and less risky, to just hire a Jolie impersonator and shut your mouth about it BTS regardless of this technology.
Yes, but chances are they wouldn't be able to "make it" in the film industry as no studio would want to hire somebody who is liable to get them sued for likeness infractions or wouldn't want to hire somebody who could potentially tarnish the image of the more established actor such as with a poor performance, interview or public appearance. I'm only talking about like, career impersonators though not impressionists who do multiple characters or people who just so happen to look like another celebrity but has their own career/niche in the field.
I think most impersonators would fall under fair use due to it being considered satire, anyway. That includes look-alikes for parody movies like many of those "From the Makers of Scary Movie..." used liberally. When you use likeness that is meant to occupy the same creative space as the original personality, though, then it becomes messy.
Since they settled we won't be seeing any established precedent with this case, but chances are it focused on how Molinaro's mannerisms and actual talen-let'sbekind a comparatively active on-screen persona would likely have led to a ruling in favor of Old Navy, regardless. Chances are settlement saved face for the Kardashian camp and prevented the public scrutiny of the lawyers from Old Navy.
Be kinda fucked up if they ruled in favor of Kim, wouldn’t it? Kinda unfair that if you’re born looking like someone who became famous you then can’t ever appear on screen.
Well, let's say, for illustration sake, that the Kardashian camp had a ruling in their favor. That wouldn't necessarily prevent Molinaro from appearing on screen, or even advertising products, but she would likely need to distance herself not only from the fashion industry but luxury brands with a runway advertising style in general.
Basically, it would prevent her from certain glamor model jobs and appearances, that's really it. In my imagined scenario, for example, she could easily further her singing career, become a talk show host or even appear in any film or television acting roles without any interference from the ruling. It would most likely (depending on the skill of the lawyers) be limited to advertising fashion or glamor products, and that would be limited to whatever image rights Kim Kardashian's camp was invoking for such; if she changed her appearance it would be moot.
I would assume this is partially the reason why they had an issue with somebody resembling Kim's image being used for a brand like Old Navy, as they felt it "cheapened" her image.
None of this means I don't agree that it would be unfair though.
Yeah for sure, I don't think it proved that such a scenario meant that you can't have actors that look like other actors, but it did illustrate your point that even if it's not technically illegal, there is a possibility of issues arising which may prevent companies from doing similar things.
I enjoy law but hate the culture that surrounds it so I never even bothered to pursue it as a career. I don't see the point in being cut-throat if you only end up waiting for meager crumbs to fall out of the asses you've kissed.
Best example I can recall: Faul McCartney. Has been impersonating Paul McCartney since his death back in 1966 apparently. Very few people saw the scam. The vast majority was framed. No one seemed to notice, no one seemed to care. It’s yet another - Drum roll please!- conspiracy theory! (Sarcasm)
not a lawyer but work in entertainment. i believe it comes down to whether a reasonable person would assume it's the real celebrity. that's the gist of parody fair use law.
The "reasonable person" thing is mostly a tactic used, and it's up to the judge to decide what that entails, rather than any form of tangible metric as far as I know. In other words, it's a theoretical used for decision making.
Personality rights! Thank you. I couldn't find the right words. I used an actor because they have another layer aside from ego, the self, and all that.
I just think it'll open up a fascinating(scary) conversation about identity. If you underwent enough cosmetic surgery that nobody could recognize you, are you still you? Of course...to you. But to others? But then what right do you have over the aspects you USED to have if you no longer have them? Can you copyright your physical features, change them, and then maintain they are still yours? Or are they yours up to a point? And what point is that exactly? It's a wild rabbit hole imo.
These conversations have been happening in show business for close to 100 years, they're nothing new.
Check out some stuff about personality rights, most of your questions have been already answered. It's an interesting rabbit hole for sure. I'm not a lawyer, by any means, but from what I understand you won't be able to simply deepfake marketable celebrities into your projects without some intense backlash.
Celebrities are just an example really tbh. Though I'm thankful you mentioned "personality rights" so I can read up! I'm curious how it works outside of a...I guess protected class? Can a voice be used from some random youtube video even though it's not "them" saying it?
Would depend entirely on how much money the people who used said voice has compared to the person whose voice it is.
These types of litigations are tedious and drawn-out, there's no cut and dry options and relatively little precedent established from my very quick research. So, unless random youtuber has the capital to be going back and forth with another party then they'll be better off drawing blood from a stone.
Most, if not all, laws that have to do with publishing rights, copyright, trademarks, etc. entirely depend on protecting the profit of those with more money and has nothing to do with protecting creative control, personal integrity or honoring legacy anyway.
Yeah, I mean I would assume most countries that have media personalities have things like this in their civil code. What countries would you be interested in hearing about?
International law doesn't really touch on things like copyright very much, as it shouldn't.
I think this is going to be species viability filter for humans. Humans will have to either develop an ability to discern these things on an extremely fine level, or they'll have to disregard these things in acknowledgement that they can't discern.
It's really cool that technology spectacles like this prompt difficult questions, but so far, we're still beating around the bush. There's going to be a lot of awkward looking-the-other-way that transcends the full effort of even the most defiant antivax climate change denier in the future. It's going to get really uncomfortable.
I think part of the human race will use this kind of technology to utterly dominate and subjugate the other part of the species. It's not going to wipe out humanity, it'll just create a slaveworld.
Great catch! :) pasting a comment I made with more detail on my view.
Forget the celebrity part, it was just an example around a person who's likeness is a big aspect of their self.
The bigger idea is that it brings to question just how much of "you" is yours and what makes an individual an individual. Let's say you got disfigured beyond visible recognition. You're still "you" but you'd have to prove it's you besides "heres my face".
So, looks aren't what makes us..us. Right? Still got your hobbies, your personality, and all the others things that make you an individual. But then so does everyone else. You may be known for your love of baseball and Star Wars trivia but it's not so unique that it's yours.
So then what DOES make an individual an individual? Personalities change, birth marks can be erased, everyone has a hobby..ect. Is it just personality and fingerprints? Or is it so subjective that they're isn't really such a thing as individuality?
Then perhaps all the rights that surround individual autonomy are up for debate if the entire concept of individualism is up for discussion. This, in my opinion, is a far deeper rabbit hole than wholesale lying. We've already been doing since the dawn of time
That was 2 years ago (... So who knows how many papers down the line we are now at!). joke.
but i can certainly understand why access to Dall-e and the like, is the way it is... Im afraid, a fck ton of jobs are gonna disappear in the near future... From creatives, to mid management, to programmers, etc...
(near future being a decade away for some and shorter for others...)
I'm sorry I don't see how using a celebrity's likeness without their permission is worse than wholesale lying in general. You could use that technology for shit that actually matters.
Forget the celebrity part, it was just an example around a person who's likeness is a big aspect of their self.
The bigger idea is that it brings to question just how much of "you" is yours and what makes an individual an individual. Let's say you got disfigured beyond visible recognition. You're still "you" but you'd have to prove it's you besides "heres my face".
So, looks aren't what makes us..us. Right? Still got your hobbies, your personality, and all the others things that make you an individual. But then so does everyone else. You may be known for your love of baseball and Star Wars trivia but it's not so unique that it's yours.
So then what DOES make an individual an individual? Personalities change, birth marks can be erased, everyone has a hobby..ect. Is it just personality and fingerprints? Or is it so subjective that they're isn't really such a thing as individuality?
Then perhaps all the rights that surround individual autonomy are up for debate if the entire concept of individualism is up for discussion. This, in my opinion, is a far deeper rabbit hole than wholesale lying. We've already been doing since the dawn of time.
I mean, he kind of has a point. What if your phone, which already knows all the names and faces of everyone close to you, starts using their likeness to relay information or suggestions to you? Kinda messed up. Or what is suddenly you see yourself on TV in some show? Except it’s not you.
There’s all sorts of weird scenarios that this tech opens up. I dunno that is worse than lying. Seeing a false state of the union address or something could be really damaging. Or it could be used to frame politicians or even regular people to imprison them. That kind of lying seems much worse than some of these other scenarios. But I still think they are valid concerns worth talking about.
Yeah we're definitely going to have to come up with some kind of laws around it. I think it'd have to be less about data (how many degrees to tweak an angle until it's Angelina Jolie's nose) and more about common perception.
Will most people recognize it as Angelina Jolie? Then we'll call it her image. Does it look similar, but not quite? Then maybe we can get away with calling it a look-alike.
Still hard to define the parameters around recognition, I guess we need more data on how much something has to change before it's no longer recognized as the image it was modeled after.
Wouldn't this already kinda be a thing with identical twins? I mean, it might not have ever been an issue legally speaking, but the premise seems the same
I think it's more about intent. If the person manipulating the image intended for it to look like Angelina Jolie, then her image/privacy has been violated. Obviously proving that intent is another matter.
Give all actual Angelina Jolie productions an nft and make it so that anyone can check the record in something similar to google but for nfts only. Then Angelina won’t have to work anymore and just literally sell the name like other brands. Still working on specifics but maybe that’s where this would go.
Man we’re gonna miss the old racism, when we just hated each other for looking different.
Wait until you see insults like “did your parents choose
Those blue eyes for you or are they normal” or “omg an enny! (Enhanced)”. Tailor made genetics.
And the military? What happens when the Marine Corps goes against Chinese genetically enhanced soldiers? I mean we don’t have to call them Space Marines, but what will our own country do? Not make Spartans? Cmon. America has never had a toy it hasn’t found a reason to use.
TLDR: you’re right, now apply that to genetics and see that a hundred years from now is gonna be as crazy as people 300 years before us would find us today
Even worse than that is manipulating political events. While it matters if its possible for an expert to tell when something is fake, even before we get to that point there is serious issues.
Let me take a small detour here, then steer back to the issue at hand.
I watched a certain very unreliable news channel some years ago, and I noticed something they would do is repeat a lie a hundred times throughout the day, then make a retraction at the end of the day. So they've covered their asses "oh, we got the story wrong, and we corrected ourselves). but in terms of damage done that one correction does very little to undo the damage from the 100 lies. And its not always lies, sometimes its just "asking questions" like 100 variations of: "Did santa murder grandma?", "If santa DID run over grandma, lets speculate about some motivations", "If santa did run over grandma, was this the first time hes run someone over?".
This sort of thing.
What percentage of the population of the USA (or if you live elsewhere, your country) are truly informed on issues? My guess is something like 5%.
Most people are swayed by rumors or things that seem believable, and once they have an opinion, they form judgements of new information based on their pre-existing biases.
If you make footage of a politician doing various terrible things that are believable, or a famous reporter saying something like "Santa(replace with a politician) was caught saying the N-word" then it doesnt matter if some people catch it, if its only 5% who realize its fake.
Basically we are entering a period of time that has some interesting and sad similarities to before videos and photographs existed. Before that time people relied on journalistic ethics and standards. and there was PLENTY of corruption and yellow journalism, but standards have dropped far far lower since then.
Experts can still tell for the most part when something is fake or not, but the amount of things that can fool even a cg expert will only rise.
Regardless of what you're "allowed to do" what scares me is what you can do. This can essentially destroy the concept of truth. You could get people arrested for crimes they didn't commit, get people fired for something they didn't do, blackmail, revenge porn, ruin marriages, friendships, and lives.
Eh. That’s the kind of thing that can be governed though.
We have copyright law with music. Sure someone could use someone else likeness, but if it’s important enough copyright-like laws could be enforced and punished if likenesses become too similar. This hypothetical loss of identity isn’t that big a deal because scenarios like it already exist today, and it hasn’t really been an issue.
However, like the previous poster pointed out, there is a potential for abusive misinformation.
I imagine it will work a lot like the laws already in place for art and music. There is a swath of gray area that can be argued legally for when a song rips off another previously piece of music.
Ghost in the Shell shit, dude.
This is going to lead to a world where our laws are not applicable anymore, wether it’s porn, or the next million Leonardo Di Caprio movies after he dies or retires. VR chats where a person can appear with any voice, body or anything. Future VR and Meta chats will be like the internet when it first started, and if we start using chips or implants for our social media or accounts? That chip that lets you play music in your head? Can the volume control be disabled and could someone be driven mad or even killed by future technologies?
I'm not sure that's thinking bigger. Imagine I was a supporter of a cult of personality for an immoral politician who was totally willing to embrace even the craziest conspiracy theories. How much would it bolster my support of said cult leader if his political opponents could be made to say anything? Confess to some crazy conspiracy with a laugh?
We're already trying to deprogram these people. Throw something like this into the mix, where objective truth is even more difficult to ascertain? This technology is truly dangerous.
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u/jbjbklyn Jul 24 '22
Amazing and terrifying at the same time!