> I would have thought that if they made the decision to go ahead despite getting two "no"s, that they at least had a legal position they thought was defensible and worth defending.
They likely have a legal position which is defensible.
They're much more worried that they don't have a PR position which is defensible.
What's the point of winning the (legal) battle if you lose the war (of public opinion)?
Given the rest of their product is built on apathy to copyright, they're actively being sued by creators, and the general public is sympathetic to GenAI taking human jobs...
... this isn't a great moment for OpenAI to initiate a long legal battle, against a female movie actress / celebrity, in which they're arguing how her likeness isn't actually controlled by her.
Talk about optics!
(And I'd expect they quietly care much more about their continued ability to push creative output through their copyright launderer, than get into a battle over likeness)
Copilot still tells me I've commit a content policy violation of I ask it to generate an image "in Tim Burton's style". Tim Burton has been openly critical of generative AI.
How is the PR position not defensible? One of the worst things you can generally do is admit fault, particularly if you have a complete defense.
Buckle in, go to court, and double-down on the fact that the public's opinion of actors is pretty damn fickle at the best of times - particularly if what you released was in fact based on someone you signed a valid contract with who just sounds similar.
Of course, this is all dependent on actually having a complete defense of course - you absolutely would not want to find Scarlett Johannsen voice samples in file folders associated with the Sky model if it went to court.
It is wild to me that on HackerNews of all places, you'd think people don't love an underdog story.
Which is what this would be in the not-stupid version of events: they hired a voice actress for the rights to create the voice, she was paid, and then is basically told by the courts "actually you're unhireable because you sound too much like an already rich and famous person".
The issue of course is that OpenAIs reactions so far don't seem to indicate that they're actually confident they can prove this or that this is the case. Coz if this is actually the case, they're going about handling this in the dumbest possible way.
> they hired a voice actress for the rights to create the voice, she was paid, and then is basically told by the courts "actually you're unhireable because you sound too much like an already rich and famous person".
There are quite a few issues here: First, this is assuming they actually hired a voice-alike person, which is not confirmed. Second, they are not an underdog (the voice actress might be, but she's most likely pretty unaffected by this drama). Finally, they were clearly aiming to impersonate ScarJo (as confirmed by them asking for permission and samas tweet), so this is quite a different issue than "accidentally" hiring someone that "just happens to" sound like ScarJo.
It’s wild to me that there are people who think that OpenAI are the underdog. A 80Bn Microsoft vassal, what a plucky upstart.
You realise that there are multiple employees including the CEO publicly drawing direct comparisons to the movie Her after having tried and failed twice to hire the actress who starred in the movie? There is no non idiotic reading of this.
You're reading my statements as defending OpenAI. Put on your "I'm the PR department hat" and figure out what you'd do if you were OpenAI given various permutations of the possible facts here.
That's what I'm discussing.
Edit: which is to say, I think Sam Altman may have been a god damn idiot about this, but it's also wild anyone thought that ScarJo or anyone in Hollywood would agree - AI is currently the hot button issue there and you'd find yourself the much more local target of their ire.
Then why bother mentioning an "underdog story" at all?
Who is the underdog in this situation? In your comment it seems like you're framing OpenAI as the underdog (or perceived underdog) which is just bonkers.
Hacker News isn't a hivemind and there are those of us who work in GenAI who are firmly on the side of the creatives and gasp even rights holders.
They likely have a legal position which is defensible.
They're much more worried that they don't have a PR position which is defensible.
What's the point of winning the (legal) battle if you lose the war (of public opinion)?
Given the rest of their product is built on apathy to copyright, they're actively being sued by creators, and the general public is sympathetic to GenAI taking human jobs...
... this isn't a great moment for OpenAI to initiate a long legal battle, against a female movie actress / celebrity, in which they're arguing how her likeness isn't actually controlled by her.
Talk about optics!
(And I'd expect they quietly care much more about their continued ability to push creative output through their copyright launderer, than get into a battle over likeness)