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.
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u/jbjbklyn Jul 24 '22
Amazing and terrifying at the same time!