If voice cloning violates right of publicity when sound recordings are fed into a model directly, does hiring a voice actor to imitate a voice and then feeding the imitated voice into a model violates right of publicity as well?
If you create something and try to sell it as something it is not, that’s fraud regardless of whether someone’s identity is wrapped up.
Also yes, any and all unapproved usage of someone’s likeness is a violation. You’re copying their likeness whether it’s from them or an impersonator.
the only exception to this is when the works are released as a parody.
If voice cloning violates right of publicity when sound recordings are fed into a model directly,
I doubt that is true.
These things are not internationally standardized. So it very much depends on where you do it.
Q1 is if you are allowed to use a recording for that purpose. This is legal in some places but not in others. I don’t think it has to do with the right of publicity, though.
Q2 is what you are allowed to do with the output. If you fool people about who is talking, then right of publicity enters. It probably does not matter how you imitate the voice, but only if you fool people. If you imitate a voice badly, but deliberately fool an elderly person who is hard of hearing and not quite sharp anymore, then it doesn’t matter if it was a bad imitation.
Parody is probably fine in most places, but standards vary.
If it’s a distinctive voice and you’re doing it for commercial reasons, you will get sued and, depending on how distinct the voice is, lose. Look up Tom Waits v. Frito-Lay. He won $2.6 million from them in 1992. Granted, that was a radio commercial, but that would be the main precedent. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/communications/waits.html
It does not unless you are trying to sell it commercially. Then you could be sued.
You make a decent thought exercise and honestly voices are not really unique. For instance, take Morgan Freeman’s voice. I like it, but I have met several people in my life that sound very similar.
I think the answer is maybe, depending on the situation. If you had a voice actor come in to mimick Morgan Freeman and the character in the game also looked like Freeman then you could have a problem on your hands.
Just the voice that sound like Freeman who also sounds like thousands of people out there would be a bit of a stretch unless you are implying it is him.
