> The crime is in the training: did they use her voice or not?

This is a civil issue, and actors get broad rights to their likeliness. Kim Kardashian sued Old Navy for using a look-alike actress in an ad; old Navy chose to settle, which makes it appear like "the real actress wasn't involved in any way" may not be a perfect defense. The timeline makes it clear they wanted it to sound like Scarlett's voice, the actual mechanics on how they got the AI to sound like that is only part of the story.

It is not an impossible situation, courts have settled it, and what you describe is not how the law works (despite how many computer engineers think to the contrary.)

As I understand it (though I may be wrong) in music sampling cases, it doesn’t matter if the “sample” is using an actual clip from a recording or if were recreated from scratch using a new media (e.g. direct midi sequence), if a song sampling another song is recognizable it is still infringing.

This has been settled law for 34 years. See Tom Waits v Frito-Lay.

They literally hired an impersonator, and it cost them 2.5 million (~6 million today).

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...

If OpenAI commissioned a voice actor to lend their voice to the Sky model, and cast on the basis of trying to get someone who is similar sounding to the Scarlett Johannson, but then did not advertise or otherwise use the voice model created to claim it was Scarlett Johannson - then they're completely in the clear.

Because then the actual case would be fairly bizarre: an entirely separate person, selling the rights to their own likeness as they are entitled to do, is being prohibited from doing that by the courts because they sound too much like an already famous person.

EDIT: Also up front I'm not sure you can entirely discuss timelines for changing out technology here. We have voice cloning systems that can do it with as little as 15 seconds of audio. So having a demo reel of what they wanted to do that they could've used on a few days notice isn't unrealistic - and training a model and not using it or releasing it also isn't illegal.

> If someone licenses an impersonator's voice and it gets very close to the real thing, that feels like an impossible situation for a court to settle and it should probably just be legal (if repugnant).

Does that mean if cosplayers dress up like some other character, they can use that version of the character in their games/media? I think it should be equally simple to settle. It's different if it's their natural voice. Even then, it brings into question whether they can use "doppelgangers" legally.

...and sama's tweet referencing "Her"

IANAL, but – I think it's most likely to be an infringement on her right of publicity (i.e. the right to control the commercial value of your name, likeness, etc.)

She doesn't have to own anything to claim this right, if the value of her voice is recognizable.

Should have renamed it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi

Or

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/9n44b6/til_t...

When those imitations are commercialized, there is a disclaimer that a celebrity voice is being impersonated, and parody is a legally protected form of speech. OpenAI is not parodying anything, and failed even the low bar of having a disclaimer.