George Carlin’s Estate Sues Podcasters Over A.I. Episode
www.nytimes.com
The lawsuit claims that an hourlong comedy special on YouTube violated Carlin’s copyright.
  • self@awful.systemsEnglish
    15·
    6 months ago

    if Chad did write the whole of the AI George Carlin thing, that makes it infinitely more depressing that all of the jokes I’ve seen from that shitty special were incredibly bland centrist horseshit, like a meeting room of capitalist shitheads workshopped a bunch of edgy jokes but not so edgy that someone might get offended into not paying them

    but let’s be perfectly honest. these fuckheads will say whatever they think might give them a leg up in the impending lawsuit, because these supposed comedians are operating like a crime-as-a-service Silicon Valley startup. they entered the market with a product (the Tom Brady special), pulled out in response to utterly predictable legal backlash, lawyered up, came back with a functionally identical v2 (the George Carlin special), and are now trying to find a legal loophole or create a precedent that’d protect their work on some grounds, regardless of the facts behind how that work was produced. just like Uber entering into a new market, they’ll repeat this process again and again until concessions are made.

    I can’t wait for these chucklefucks to drop the comedian act and start claiming trade secrets in response to discovery.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    15·
    6 months ago

    Well, the suit may fail, if the article is accurate, and it was indeed an impression done by a human from a human written script. The intro of the video says it isn’t Carlin and that it isn’t written by Carlin. So a claim that it’s a violation of the estate’s rights in some way hinges on it actually being an AI trained on Carlin’s material. Otherwise, it’s going to fall under the same kind protection that celebrity impersonators do. At least that’s what it looks like from back when I was looking into that kind of thing for a book I never wrote.

    There’s a lot of leeway given to tributes, impressions, etc, as long as there’s no deception involved.

    • earthquake@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      6 months ago

      Del declined to comment about whether the Carlin-sounding voice was generated by A.I.

      I bet they used an AI trained on Carlin’s work to create this special, but Lugosi v. Universal Pictures, IMO (IANAL) means Carlin’s family will likely lose a suit based on imitating his likeness. Good thing I’m not a lawyer because apparently there’s several laws now, starting with the “California Celebrities Rights Act” meaning likeness rights are inherited and good for 70 years.