George Carlin Estate Files Lawsuit Against Group Behind AI-Generated Stand-Up Special: ‘A Casual Theft of a Great American Artist’s Work’::George Carlin’s estate has filed a lawsuit against the creators behind an AI-generated comedy special featuring a recreation of the comedian’s voice.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Where’s the line? Were they parodying Carlin? Or just using his likeness? Can Fox News do this with Biden?

    This is a far larger thing than just a comedy impersonation.

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s something the law isn’t equipped to handle as written.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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        9 months ago

        And fear of things for which no law can be ready imagined in their extremes is how I got my current attitude to everything legal.

        About the event itself - well, I suppose Carlin himself would be amused by the fact.

    • 4AV@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Whether it’s presented as real seems a reasonable line to me.

      Fox News could not use it to mislead people into thinking Biden said something that he did not, but parody like “Sassy Justice” from the South Park creators (using a Trump deepfake) would still be fine.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Fox News could run it with every disclaimer out there and it would still get picked up by every other conservative channel and site as legitimate.

        This is why likenesses are protected.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      If you watch the video it’s very clear from the beginning that it’s a fake voice and they used AI to write the jokes. It says flat out it’s not George Carlin. There is no way anyone could be mistaken. Also it only kind of sounds like him.

        • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          What then? That person may be held liable for whatever crime you believe was committed.

          The comedy special not only prefaced the show with multiple disclaimers, but also jokes about it during the special.

          If someone wants to edit it to be deceptive, then that’s on them.

          The creator would have nothing to do with it.

    • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Donald Trump, while president, was impersonated by thousands of people as comedy acts. Some people even had full time gigs doing it!

      It’s not a illegal when you are doing it for comedy. Pretending to actually be someone who you are not, is fraud, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

      Mimicking someone’s voice or putting on a costume in their likenesses doesn’t make it illegal.

      If it did, then Elvis impersonator festivals would be a mass crime gathering!

        • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          So it was the fact that he used an impersonation to promote a podcast that’s the issue, not the fact that there was an impersonation? Is that what the lawsuit is going after?

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I think so. If you personally made “George Carlin AI Album #2” or whatever and put it on YouTube and didn’t link it to some moneymaking venture, I doubt they would be suing. This is two comedians using a third, dead, comedian to generate revenue for their own comedy.

            • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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              9 months ago

              Even though the AI Carlin said numerous times that it was not the real Carlin?

              It’ll be interesting to see how this lawsuit develops.

                • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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                  9 months ago

                  Such an idiotic ruling.

                  If someone can sing, with their own voice, then that’s their singing voice. It shouldn’t matter if it sounds like someone else, because it’s not them!

                  It’s idiotic because it essentially creates limits for talent and skill in an artistic sense.

                  There’s a band called Greta Van Fleet who sounds exactly like Led Zeppelin, they’ve even done Zep covers, and it would be completely asinine to punish them (and fans) for having a certain sound.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        9 months ago

        Not even for comedy but for art in general.

        If we couldn’t impersonate likenesses in art, art would fucking suck. Think of every fictional character who ever met a well-deserved demise that was inspired by a real person.

        Hell, look at The Crucible. Required reading when I went to high school. Literally an allegory for the red scare and McCarthy’s communist “witch hunts” going on at the time of its writing.

        Not just that, but being critical of the rich and famous, especially high-profile politicians, is an incredibly important part of art. It’s practically the origins of modern theater. And inversely, arts criticism is an incredibly important part of politics.