World-Voices.org - AI legalities with Rob Sciglimpaglia

good morning everybody and welcome to this presentation from World voices on AI and legalities and uh I'm Dan Leonard president of world voices joined by Dave corvier uh president emeritus of world voices and a founding member and our guest Rob siglin Paglia who is also a founding member of wovo he's been with us since the early days our legal council in fact he's also our corporate counsel uh but Rob graduated K Ludy from University of Connecticut with a bachelor's of Arts degree M majoring in political science he also attended and graduated from Pace University School of Law with a jurist doctor degree and Rob is also author of the book voice over legal which hit number one on the Amazon bestseller list for entertainment law books of which is not a big category but there must be one anyway uh welcome Rob I mean we everybody's talking about AI you know we see we see the ads in Facebook of it's almost like human voices or it's better than human voices or it's all these things is it really a threat to everybody why don't we just start that way and then we can get to some of the other points that we want to get to sure it's a threat I mean it could with the live actors and voice actors right out of business maybe it would serve us to if you could recap Bev standing's case that was the first one that really uh got everybody's attention would it be pertinent to talk about how that came about and how you resolved it sure yeah so what happened with Bev was that she had recorded um like back in 2018 time frame she had got hired for a job to just record a bunch of random lines they told her it was for a translation job um for Chinese translation which is red flag right there China um and a couple years later her daughter heard her voice on Tik Tok as the text of speech voice and so she contacted her mom's like hey you're you're this is you're on Tik Tok and she's like wait a minute I never I never did any work for Tik Tok so she traced it back to that job she had done for the Chinese translation what we did was we uh copyrighted those files because she had done them from her home studio and we filed a copyright infringement case in the southern district of New York and you know Tik Tock didn't even know that they had purchased the files they had gotten them not illegally they had gotten them from that company that that did the the uh the the voice that the work that that did for them and they were nowhere to be found Lord knows where they were they were probably somewhere deep in China um so Tik Tok ended up settling the case and you know making things kind of right but you know just the whole way that it happened is you know it's just a kind of a wakeup cause you know you have to figure out where your your files are going to end up when you hit the send button you know where where are they gonna go so yeah you have to trace them that you know contract protect yourself now kind like online casting is not going away AI voices are not going to go away either I know of some U professional voice actors who are going ahead and Licensing their voice with a with some online service that can clone their voice you know where do we decide what's right for us I mean that's really a personal decision so right now it's AI is still way much in its infancy well I mean not really because it's being been developed it's being developed for a long time you know it's been at least 10 or 20 years where it's AI has gotten to this point now what we're seeing now is we're seeing the the end results we're seeing the marketing we're seeing the business plans coming through we're seeing the way to make money as a matter of fact Nvidia if anyone has the videoid stock you know how AI you know can make you tons of money because the stock they just just yesterday uh put out their earnings and their earnings have gone you know through the roof and their stock price has gone through the roof and you know it's gone up 600% in the past couple years nid is one of the companies that are at the Forefront of AI for not not necessarily for soers but for AI in general technology so the technology now it's actually started to make a push consumer wise business-wise so this is why we're seeing these issues come up now but these issues I've been talking about these issues for years I I did a presentation about this in 2019 back in voiceover Atlanta you know what to look for in a contract and you know so this it's been building up to this so now now the results so now voice actors just need to stay on top of these things to figure out when they want to jump in or if they want to jump in to see if there's a way to make money as a cloning the cloning the voice so there are opportunities out there some voice actors like I want nothing to do with it other voice actors are embracing it so it really and same thing with actors it's it's the same thing with on camera you know on camera I I've I just talked to a filmmaker the other day who's doing a complete AI film he's doing it one 100% Ai No humans all voice and faces that he's going to just generate so and we we could talk about the different different styles of AI that you have to you know the different uses for AI that people should be aware of because there's really three big uses you can clone someone's Voice direct or clone someone's image direct and use that you know so James Earl Jones Jes a celebrity you could you know clone him and put him right in Star Wars just like they did or Billy Joel's new video where or they cloned you know they took an actor and they put Billy Joel's face on it and you know made him young again right so that's one use same thing with voice you could clone your voice there's machine learning which is another usage and voice actors are getting paid big bucks right now for machine learning so all what that is is you're going to record bunch of files and then they're using those files to train to make AI sound more natural they put the breath sounds in they put the pauses in you know all those things it's trying to emulate human speech so that that's voice actors can be hired to machine learn same thing with actors they could be hired just them to teach teach AI the third is the most the one that's the most disturbing to me and the one that should be most disturbing to all and that that's generative AI what generative AI is that's where the computer creates an entire new something entire new likeness entire new voice and what it does is it scours all the files of the internet and comes up with something new so for instance I I want a picture of a a dog right and I want AI to generate it so what the computer does is it goes out it scours every single picture of every dog that they can find online and it comes back with a a unique looking dog so it does the same thing with voices and it does same thing with likenesses so that's the part that's the concern that the community has and that we should have because how are we gonna know they used a little piece of our voice our voice to come up with a new voice so how protect you know how do you protect yourself from that Rob right so there's technology now that's coming up that's come that's out there um that is being created so you can you can trace you can trace your voice um and you can opt out of those machine learning and doing those jobs so that you're you're not you're not at least being illegally using your voice so you know you can't really prevent somebody from using F files that are out there there's really no way to prevent that unless you can digital digitally Water Market which that's what that's the technology that's coming so you know with every new technology there's counter technology that comes out so there's a bunch of counter technologies that are being developed stay tuned H theid is one of the companies that are doing it um they're not really out yet so um you know just keep your eyes open for it because it's still you know and that's what the whole lawsuit is about that the New York Times brought against chat CPT and the auth the um artists brought against chat GPT they're they're trying to say generative AI should be violated of copyright but the courts are not they're really not helping because they're saying prove it prove that your voice is part of prove that your article is part of that that new article prove that your voice is part of that new voice prove that your face is part of that new likeness so that that's the hard Parts the proof so it's a little beh the proof part's a little behind yet so the technology will catch up but right now it's a little behind so so in the interim while this is developing and you the software to detect is not quite out yet is there a way that we can protect ourselves like with a contract or with a statement yes with a contract well the first of all the law is protecting us a little bit there's a couple of things that happened the copyright office has said that and they this has they've been their policy for a while they're not going to copyright anything that there's any generative AI in it they're not going to copyright it so if you come up with an AI film that's generative AI they they're not going to copyright it so it's they're not going to have any protection so that's one kind of push back you'd have to prove there's they're coming up with standards you have to prove that a majority of the work is human comes out of the mind and not from the computer so there there's guidelines for that that they're still coming up with and um the second thing that happened is there that the um FTC or the federal government just passed the anti- fraud law saying that you know any any AI that used to commit a scam commit a fraud over phone lines or computer lines it's it's criminal so and the FTC enforces that so you know like all those scams that you hear where you know they they clone a voice your your kids voice and they call you on the phone and and you know saying give me you know I've been in an accident I've been it sounds like you're a kid I've been in an accident like I'm in jail send me $50,000 or you know there asking for a ransom kind of thing you know those are those are the kind of scams that fall under that new act um deep faking so that you know I think the the the impetus behind the law was when there was that the Deep fake with Joe Biden during the Vermont campaign and that's when that all this happened the law of got passed I mean obviously they've been talking about it for a while but it it actually pushed it over the Finish Line I think um so Rob you're saying right now the best recourse is through the courts I mean how much time do you have in your day you're about the only one that we can turn to it seems i' I've got whole floor full of cases right here that you know for you know one of my cases the uh uh the company that had uh the com so a lot of the cases work start out from legitimate work so one but one of the cases um the company had paid the producer and the producer never got the talent to sign off so the talent found our voice on a on a a database and then they paid to settle the case but then they messed up and they put it back on the database so now there was some pornographic stuff that was that a lot of pornographic stuff that was done using the the cloned voice so now they're paying again but these are issues you know that that are happening all the time there's there are um some of the the the uh pay to plays are they're not they're promoting things like they're signing off on contracts letting machine learning happen and and not letting the talent know and stuff like that so you got to be aware like I said whereare where the your files terms are going read the terms of service and then you know follow it you know make make sure that you're asking questions you know if if you like if you did an audition for a machine learning for instance and then you end up not agreeing to terms make sure that the files get destroyed and that are still used because some some of the places are still still using the files so contract talk about that new uh replica Studios contract sag after recently negotiated with replica Studios this was announced at CES and and Fran dreser called it a great example of AI being done right so what's good and bad about this contract so the collective bargaining and the TV and film agreement and replica studios are they it's similar so the disturbing thing about both of those things is that AI was not banned like like you didn't didn't say no AI producers can't use it so what they did was they set up parameters so the replica Studios contract that's non-broadcast so that that mirrors the parameters that are in the broadcast film and TV collective bargaining agreement and basically what it says is if you do a job and you get paid for that job if they want to clone your voice to for that job for that project that's okay you know they set minimum pay that you need to get in that circumstance um if they want to use the files for a future job what the contracts say is that you they have to get something from you specifically in writing giving permission and that they need to uh you need to negotiate pay so they didn't really say what the pay it can be except that has to be minimum for the day so you know like scale basically what they said but you can you can negotiate anything that you want because they didn't really set a you know this is the price know they just said this is the minimum that has to be paid um and then they also put in there that if uh if there's a cele deceased person or celebrity they can use those files that they have you know they can get the deceased person's voice print and make a or likeness and U make a clone but they have to get the the Estates or the fam's permission right and those permissions will have to be specifically revoked so they give the right to revoke them to the to the Estates or to the the actor so in a nutshell yeah what's missing in that what would you like to have seen written into that well the other things that they so that's for the current projects for future projects they they can use those files they have to pay you but as I mentioned before what they allow is generative AI without payment so those are the things that that's that's the real danger because there's no way to track it that's the problem so generative AI if they use your if you have to prove your that they're using your likeness so it have to is on you then right or like this would have to be close enough they have to your voice or to your face to be able to prove that you know that that that's not allowed like that specifically is says it in the contract if there is any any resemblance of any attending questions we we want to get to um sure one thing I want to bring up is in our last webinar with Janet Walton the president CEO of um Dan helped me out here sound uh spot sound sunspots um she said it was very useful for her to have ai in certain circumstances for instance her husband got Donia and could no longer answer a client needs and so they cloned his voice to be able to voice spots that they really liked his voice for and she likes the fact that they can drop in tags or one or two words in a spot that that needs a change in the copy right and and the voice actor is off you know in the Bahamas is on vacation uh there are some of those instances popping up that seem to be useful for voice actors yes there are it's a new movement I've seen actually where the the uh producers want that ability to add a you know fix a couple of words add a tag um not generate new things and that's that's where the line has to be drawn if they want to generate a new commercial generate a new tag that that's where the actor should still be paid but if if um and that's kind of what the SAG contract says if they want to use what you did for to fix that in that particular production that it's okay but you just have you know have to be paid for the production so as long as you're paid they allow that usage for AI so what what I think Studios should do and I know that there are some that are talking about doing this is just get some kind of um waiver or contract upfront that they're going to say that if they're going to use your voice to clone and do simple things like that like they used to do in the past it's really no different in than when they you would do like five takes and they would take part part of take one two three you know they or they take a word and combine it it's really no different so they're they're doing the same kind of thing but they're just it's easier to to to clone the voice and come up with the whole phrase and piece it together so I think is if they come up with some kind of they should come up with some kind of waiver of contract that the actor signs that they know right up front that that is a possibility and they they will know that the the files are going to get Destro destroyed the Clone files are going to get destroyed after the production that they're not going to store them anywhere um that if they're they're not going to use it future Productions um unless you get paid for it so if all that's spelled out in an agreement I think that it' be more accepting in for voice actors because it's the unknown factor of course that's the scary part is you know they're using my voice for cloning you know it could be used for for you know yeah it could be used for porn you know something like that you know like the the r fear that I was telling you about what that happened to one of my clients so so Dan uh how about some questions from our attendees yeah let's uh if anybody has a question for Rob about AI because we're always seem to be asking these questions and you know if you again if you go on Facebook you're going to get a trillion different opinions about that uh but if you have a question put it in the chat there's a chat uh box at the bottom of the zoom page we've all been on Zoom it's always there uh and if you have a question for Rob specifically about this particular topic throw it in there and uh so that would be the best way to get your questions answered right now actually Dan is there them coming in as panelists they need to use the Q&A block and not chat oh it's oh it's in the oh the Q&A bot right that's right carry on so do we have questions yet yeah uh Elizabeth asked one uh following on with the Bev standing case strategy she was able to copyright because she recorded the files herself but if she had recorded those files in a studio would she have been without recourse uh that a recourse that would only have been um likeness um violation of the use of likeness and we also put that in his account um but copyright is much stronger legally than violation of the use of your likeness because copyright is basically a strict liability You just prove that they use your files without your permission and then this the statute gives an amount of Damages that the court can award and you don't have to you don't have to prove that you were damaged you just have to show that they have used your work without permission and then the Court decides on a sliding scale from like $500 per violation to the $555,000 per violation you know where it falls so it's uh if she had recorded in another Studio she wouldn't have had that option it would have just been illegal use of likeness yeah Lyn Darlington has an interesting question um concern about pulling audio from our websites have we seen any examples of that you're everybody's any audio that's out on the internet right now on YouTube on your website anywhere is being right as we sit here it's being scanned millions of times that's what generative AI does so yes it's that's the technology so the only way you can avoid it is get the you know when the counter technology comes out trace it or don't go on the internet that those are those are your recourses right now so all right we've got one from Phil katronis who asks do you think nowadays some potential clients ask for auditions just to do voice harvesting for AI purposes or should we yeah should we proceed there as we always have absolutely I've seen cases of that the AUD I conditions are they give you hints you can see little red flags in the in the specs but their their intention is to to use it for machine learning most of the time they're not going to go public facing with it because they you know then they get snagged but if it are sued but they they're they're Harvest they're using it for machine learning for most of the you know a lot of times or I mean generative AI is could be you'll never know like because it's just that's the computer scanning it but they can put it up for storage and then it will be part of generative AI but again that there's really you don't know about about that so that's that just happens um the machine learning part that's the part you know like you could get money you should get paid for that like so if they're if they're doing an audition and they're legitimate they'll say that you know if we like these files we'll use them for machine learning or model and I see their companies that that do that but there are companies that are sneaky and for some reason I mean I'm going to say this people may maybe may say I'm I'm a a racist or something but China like they come out of China for you know if you see something out of China those are the contracts I see are the ones that they do sneaky stuff so I don't I don't know I think it's just because they don't really have the same copyright laws that we have here or you know you can't trace them or whatever get away with it yeah they get away with it yeah so it's if you see it if you see Company from China immediately put up a red flag immediately you have to put it up because it could let end up in the wrong hands and then you're not going to be able to find you're not gonna be able to find them hopefully you know if they're doing thing Contracting with a legitimate company then it's gonna be it's not the ideal situation but it's easier to track them down and and if you need to bring a lawsuit bring a lawsuit you know if they're using like one of the big the big companies if they're because a lot of the big companies also contract they all do they contract with smaller contractors and some of them were out of China you know like Microsoft Apple Amazon Google they contract with Studios all over the world some of them are in China so sometimes it's legit but if you could find out the end company that that they're working for that's that's the ideal situation you know not just a blind this company from China is taking my audition or my files and I don't know what's going to happen from there yeah once again if you have a question for Rob because again we've all been asking questions about this which is why we've brought Rob in here to talk with us this morning there is a Q&A bought at the bottom of the uh Zoom page and you can ask your questions right there because we want to hear from you because this is for you uh so Rob it's it's getting it's getting really really bad out there as far as everybody thinking that they're going to get cloned are we seeing lots of examples of this I mean you obviously you were saying that uh you've been getting a lot of stuff that your inbox is pretty full with people asking about this how bad is it out there especially in the voice over world because we know they're doing it in in in video and and various other things and uh but what about specifically with with voiceover what exactly are you seeing far well I'm not seeing blatant cloning which is a good thing so I'm not seeing people a lot of Deceit some auditions maybe but it's more for you know the sneaky stuff machine learning it's not really cloning where they're using the voice on a on a database but what I'm seeing a lot of is people had had done all the jobs five years ago where they were doing it you know saying all these lines all of a sudden they're on a database somewhere or a bunch of databases I'm seeing that I'm seeing the results now with people coming forward hey why is my voice on here and here and here and here well give me the contract that you signed when you you know you did the job then it it says right there they're going to do it for cloning they're going to do it for commercial uses this that the other thing read the fine print so I'm seeing a lot of that and then people you know saying can I get out of this and it's really difficult to get out of that there may be a reason to get out of it but it's it's you know you gotta really you gotta have a strategy as the or a reason why you could break the the contract so you said you had like four cases right there on your desk I mean can you speak generically about the nature of those cases yes yes so those cases de one of them I already told you about with the uh the company that had um mistakenly put the voice back up on a database and then it was used for pornographic stuff and a whole bunch of other stuff um and then a couple of the other ones deal with um some of the beta plays that are are giving or they're doing these auditions but then then they're not coming to agreements but they're just allowing the the companies that to use the the files anyway and not paying the talent so those are a couple of cases that I have um I've got a couple of cases where uh there's no contract and then there's there's uh some kind of cloning or some kind of machine learning that's being used so if there's no contract that's actually better for the talent because then you could do a ceas and assist because you still own your files you still own you know where where your work's going to be used you own that right um or you and you also own your likeness so if you're not well you don't own your likeness but you have the right to say where your likeness is used so I don't want to confuse anybody um so you if the your old sign that away then you still have that right so you could send a c inist if you see that your files are being used for machine learning purposes or your voice is on a database somewhere if there was no contract at the beginning that's going to help so those are the kind of things I've I've been seeing if there's no contract it'll help if there's no contract it will help ironically enough yes if there's a contract well if there's a contract and it doesn't cover this that will help too but if the contract most of the contracts that I'm seeing they were they were setting this up for right now so they were saying we're going to use this for artificial intelligence we're going to clone your voice we're going to use it for any purpose we want in perpetuity commercial it could be a commercial you know they spill it all out and we're using it for Amazon or you know say that's the kind of stuff it says in those contracts so look for those words I get it so I don't know why people sign to those contracts I mean and those are the contracts that I when I did review I would call them career suicide contracts like why are you gonna do this you don't know what they're GNA use this for they're saying they can use this for anything in the world any time so like right now you're getting 10 grand but who knows what's going to happen three four five years from now so why are you signing that contract like like it's without that knowled without knowledge it's really hard to agree to things I think a lot of us are just put off by by the verboseness of a a legal contract and how long and how difficult it can be to read through them is is there anything that we should be you know by paragraph or by words is there anything we should be looking for well first of all the longer and the more complex the the contract is have it look by a lawyer pay a couple hundred bucks have a lawyer looking over like that's that's our job that that's why we went to law school right so that should be the first clue if you have a 14-page contract that was sent to you I'm telling you right now there's going to be something in there or more than one thing in there that I'm gonna find that's going to be not in your favor so just get it looked over if it's something that's simpler couple of pages focus on the usage focus on how if you you know I mean I've heard I'm sure many people heard this already in perpetuity if you see that word you have to break that down it's not necessarily a bad thing but it's something that if you can't if you don't have to agree to it don't because first of all nothing lives in perpetuity nothing right so why are you going to agree to imp perpetuity all that means is they haven't thought about the usage that's what that means because so you want to have them think how are you going to use this ask that question you know what is your intention oh we don't know client doesn't know well let's figure it out because let's find out you know then you can you can base your price on that you can you know you can make lots of decisions based on that but so if you in perpetuity is is definitely a word not I'm not saying that don't sign any contract that says said perpetuity but just you need to do a little more digging on it yeah let's get to these questions Dan yeah we've got one this is relating to that Venus crout asks Rob do you feel that the rates they're offering to do the learning AI type is fair depends on completely depends on the job so I've seen them from a thou for $ thousand doll I just negotiated one for 20 so it really just depends on on who's hiring you and what they're using it for what you know if they're gonna sometimes they'll say they're going to do machine learning and account they're going to use your files to combine it with other voices to come up with another voice sometimes I'll say that in the contract and those generally pay more than if they're just using it for machine learning so it's I don't see a standard anywhere there and I it really is you know if like a big company's hiring you generally they're gonna pay more than if it's just a small uh you know Fly by Night little run couple of company pop that pops up that's just doing this to make a buck so and there are there are those companies that just have popped up to make a buck and they're not going to be around long yeah KO voice asks on a question we were just talking about if you say at the top of the audition this audio is for audition purpose o audition purposes only is that enough oh you just gave him another line they could sample no it it doesn't mean anything it doesn't the the computer does just they don't understand what I mean they they kind of kind of understands because it's AI but it doesn't matter like they're just doing that to to to train the computer how to speak better so it it no that doesn't there's no legal protection in that yeah not at all none at all okay rifa Rothstein asks do you know anything about the privacy laws that different voice cloning Services abide by for instance if the uh she wanted to create her own AI Voice through something like 11 Labs what privacy do they do they ensure that's a good question there are some legitimate ones 11 Labs murf um and they they're going to spell out what they're going to use your voice for so they're either going to put it up on the database or they're going to use it for machine learning and They al they all have if they're legit they'll have a paragraph in their contract that says what how they're going to protect they're going to use reasonable industry standards to protect your voice from being hacked um you know they'll they'll use that kind of language and they'll also have language in there about when you the the fair ones will say that the contract's only valid for you know a year or two years or whatever term you want to pick and it'll also say what happens at the end of that term that they're gonna give you the voice back they're going to destroy the files they're going to destroy them after a period of time whatever it'll say what happens when the contract's over so those are the things that you want to look for if you're considering cloning your voice from a legit company all right uh followup on that uh which of these voice cloning companies have the best reputations you have any insight on that yet re Speer murf 11 Labs uh what's the other one it starts with an R I forget it but there's another one there's like four or five of them that rer I see ricer that's it I see over and over again that uh you know have legit um contracts andot most of those I think all of them have actually consulted with me so that's because you know they'll be saying voice actors going with the same changes to the contracts and they're like hey you using the same lawyer and then they'll you know we end up going over their contracts and kind of making it so that they go get built into all their contracts so I I've talked to many of those those companies all right uh Liz denesa uh says if we decide to clone our voice what Basics should we look for in an agreement the ones I just mentioned time period you need to mute there we go okay time period is big a big one so you should when you're signing a contract you should have be able to set a period of time so you know a year two years some kind of term it shouldn't be forever you should be able to try it out make sure it's working out for for you and then be able to terminate the contract if it's not so that's a big one for me um some kind of residual you know some if they're gonna they're going to pay pay you for usage so you know 10% 20% whatever you negotiate um so if as they're selling the the uh The Voice you're getting a piece some kind of say over who gets to use the voice so so you're not running into a conflict situation you know so being able to veto certain voice certain jobs that's that's another thing that you should try to put to the contracts and and most of them are okay with that what happens to storage you know they gonna make sure you don't want that to be hacked you don't want it to be used for uh generative AI out you know in in the general public you want it behind some kind of firewall that us in there um what else um what happens when with the files when you leave is it your does it belong to you do you get it back um do you have to you know are they gonna destroy it you know what are they going to do when the contract's over you know those are big terms that you want covered in in a in an agreement all right uh Joe nangle Hey Joe how's it going so there is no legal verbiage we can add add to our websites to protect the use of our demos for cloning purposes nope oh well no you could put all those disclaimers up that you want but they're not if someone first of all they can't clone your voice that is not that's not legal the only thing that can happen is that they can scan the files and it will use as part of some other generative AI thing that you're not going to recognize so they can't just take your file off your website and clone your voice that's that's illegal right that's what the fraud act has said and it's it's illegally use of your likeness so and plus it's probably your file is yours you own it so it's probably a violation of copyright too so you don't need that disclaimer because it's already illegal all you're trying when you put the disclaimer up what do you got to do prevent someone from that wants to break the law from breaking the law right I mean if someone's going to break the law they're going to break the law it doesn't matter what it says on on the uh on the screen and they may be from China so they probably can't read it anyway so I'm joking around but you know what I mean if you disclaimer if someone wants to break the law doesn't you know it like if it's like putting a no trespassing sign upon your property y look at it that way all right so if they're GNA trespass on your property they care the damn signs there what it doesn't make a difference right it make deter some people but it's not going to it's not binding it's not going to do anything all right Karen no Katherine Gaffney asks what's the best way to find out if your voice is out there and being used without permission that's a great question that's one I don't have an answer to so most people rely on their colleagues telling them that uh hey I heard your voice here or there you know just like if you there's a a commercial that's running that you did that was not supposed to be running anymore and someone sees it somewhere and that that's really the only way but there is technology that's being developed so you be able to trace you'll be able to talk give a sample of your Ro and then that sample lives on the on a server and then it you know you can compare other anywhere else on the internet to that sample so that's in development how soon will that be coming out do you think Rob um I think pretty soon actually because I've seen I've seen the um I've seen the posts for people to start putting up their samples some betas some betas yeah so pretty soon that's good all right uh Elizabeth Oaks uh asks so what phrases or Provisions in contracts should be red flags or lined out absolutely um anything that says that they have the right to well first of all they're going to own own your files so if they take ownership if it says that it's a work for hire it's they own the copyright you know you have to it may be okay for them to have ownership but you have to put a caveat or a ride or and say that they're not going to use your um voice for cloning purposes so that that's first ownership in perpetuity any usage that they want we're going to use the the files for anything that we want in theut future for be it commercial be it you know narration they list a whole bunch of things those are that's a red flag if they're going to take the files and and there's no way to terminate the contract so if it says that they can use it for whatever they want and there's no time limit on there um and there's no way for you to terminate that's that's a red flag um and you'll generally see these all in like one paragraph it'll all be together it'll say we own these files you own you have no they over future use um forever and perpetuity you know it's usually all in one paragraph that you'll see it so and sometimes you can't cross those out sometimes you know if you cross them out they're GNA say they don't they're not going to do the job with you so that's just something that you have to decide if it's a worthy risk to take on for the the amount of money you're getting paid or if you know if you're going to pass on the job so and that's something that some Talent some Talent have to decide talent that I advise too that's that's not my call it's theirs so uh Liz dener follow-up question at do we own the Clone version that somebody's made of us that would be contract yeah so some some some companies allow you to own the voice and you're licensing it back to them for a period of time other companies want to take ownership and then their license to get your licensees get from them BAS basically to use it so it's uh it really just depends on every company's different so that's a negotiation point though yeah absolutely uh Karen Clark asks should we groups like wovo start conversations with pay to-play platforms regarding protecting our auditions you mentioned something like firewalls yes I I think that you absolutely should um and I would even dig deeper than that and make sure that they're looking out for the talent and not for themselves when they're you know they giving permission to for the the clients to use files for AI purposes or where they're doing other things that they shouldn't be doing posting auditions that they shouldn't be posting in the first place so I would dig even I would dig deeper I would I would want them to you know sign some kind of code of best practices or something as on AI jobs so would would you be willing to help us wovo uh in coming up with some some language that we could present to those casting Services of course of course yeah I mean there's stuff I see over and over again and stories I hear over and over again that you know abuses so so you're at the Apex of this issue what troubles you the most about where it's going uh not necessarily troubling me but um I I can see I the unknowing part is the part that troubles me the most because it could it could go where I don't think it's the human element's ever GNA come out go out of Arts I don't think that that's ever gonna happen but how much from your lips to God's ears yeah well I don't think it will like no I agree but um but how much people are gonna try well of course they are because you know producers but I don't even think the producers want to take the full human element out I think they're trying to make their jobs easier and I can see it I'm a producer too so I see it from that side I don't want to call these people back in to do ADR I just just let me clone your voice and do the lines you know what I mean like I could match it up much easier on the computer if I you know what I'm saying so I don't think they want to take the human element out but they just want to make their job easier I think what the scary part is is how far like how far how much of it they're gonna they want to take out of it you know what I mean like they to take out 75% of it do they want to take out 50 do they want to take out 90 like how how far is it going to go that's that's that's the part that that troubles me um and then the gener of AI part like that part has to get worked out by um law right like we because that they can just generate all new characters all new faces all new voices and so it's a wild west until those laws come into Force right and and I don't know how good the technology is right now to be able to create 100% human-looking likenesses or voices through generative AI by combining but that's what they're working on right now those are the jobs that are going out that the voice actors are doing right now to to perfect that part of the process you know the ones that are piding 20 grand that's what they're doing the machine learning they're they're perfecting that generative AI part of the process so we're kind of at the end stage of this now you go at the being beginning stages they were just you know it was the the robotic type voices that they were taking samples for you know now it's more now they're getting to the we're doing the generative AI part now where we're going to combine a whole bunch of voices by computer a whole bunch of images by computer and come up with something that looks perfectly human and you're not gonna be able to tell right that's what they're working on now so I was reading an article about game voices gamer voices and producers who do those electronic games and they're saying AI comes in really handy to protect the voices of um voice actors who have to Grunt and scream and yell uh they can clone those yes interjections and save the actor's voice yes that's true um but again it just depends on how far how far how far they're gonna take it so you know they're gonna just get rid of the actor Al together or you know they just is that where they're gonna stop so and that's that's the scary part and's wrestling with right that's the scary part for all of us like that's that's what we're we're worried about and there's really no way to answer that question but I just don't I personally being involved with this for you know since kind of the beginning I personally don't think that the the human element has got to be removed completely like I think creativity comes in yeah the creativity that you know the connection you know I don't I don't know if a robot is going to be able to make human connection I don't know when that day will happen it might might but like I don't know when that will will be and I don't know when that will be accepted by the you know the the US humans accept connections with with robots and AI so I I I think we're you know I think I think it's a way long ways down the road so yeah Phil katronis asks um even if a legit AI company of course what is a legit AI company agreed to destroy your voice files after a defined period of time wouldn't they still have access if they did a disaster recovery of their file system at some later time well that's what the contract's for so if they're agreeing to destroy the files and they don't that's what happened that was the case that I was telling you about they decided they said they were going to destroy the voice take it down they paid for that and then they made a mistake ended up going back up it's so now they're going to paying triple what they paid the first time because now we have a contract we had an agreement they breached it so you know if that would actually be a good thing for for you if that happened because just call me and we'll you know we'll I can file the laws right there it's easy for a judge to read a contract so they violated it alrighty uh Ellen Richards uh so should we copy copyright our demos that are posted online uh no you don't have to do that um again you're not going to know you're not going to know if someone's using your little T piece of your demo for generative AI we don't know because the computer just does it automatically and they do it in the background you they don't tell you hey I use your demo right and then so it's only if someone was going to steal it and then use it to clone your voice and but you you don't you can still go after them for that like they can't that's still not legal under under us law pretty much the whole world law you can't you can't do that so I don't think you need to copyright copyright it's the same challenge that artists and photographers have is that AI is going out and grabbing Snippets of their product incorporating it into some some other amalgam uh exactly yeah that's what you're saying yeah that's the case that that's those are the cases that were filed you know the uh photographers arti and New York Times F already filed lawsuits against chat GPT and that's what that's what the cause of action is that they're using stets of my work and violating copyright and like I said courts are like you know it's still running through the courts but the initial reaction of the judges were like well prove me prove it to me yeah I'll you know I'll be more sympathetic kind of thing so well let's look at it from from another perspective uh because laws come from legislation are we seeing any real action in Congress uh or the senate or in the federal government to really try to address this particular situation yes yes that's what that's what I said it was a big step forward with the fraud act because they specifically addressed AI um deep faking is one of the big parts of that case or that law like they're they're they were like when Joe Biden Got Deep faked like that that's why it got over the finish line over the finish line but now they're talking about more they're working on more of the nuances they've been working on it for a while you know FTC had a whole a whole um they've been having hearings on on this for a long time um so yes they are actively working on it they did pass a big part of a law you know and made fraudulent so that's good um the artist part of it g that's a whole other that's a whole other arm like that's that's a very specialized like the the laws that they're passing are for the general public now like it's for everybody you know what I mean so like now when they're moving on to artists that's it's more of a specialized we're specialized group so we're we're just not as big as of a priority still you know this is a huge issue that they're trying to tackle so you know eventually it we get there the courts will help you know as as more lawsuits be are brought you know they'll be precedent that'll be set so that's going to help FTC now doing regulations they'll be able to help so and I know that every state has something pending like every single state you can go online and there's a a website where you can track I laws and what every State's doing so I forget the name of the site but yeah that because Facebook is probably not the place to get the definitive answers on these questions I mean it's good to hear the conversation but never has been yeah Facebook is good for raising issues but it's not good for resolving them right that's how I look at it yeah um once again if you've got a question for Rob uh there is a Q&A bot at the bottom of the uh Zoom window there and I'm sure this probably raises more questions than it answers but figure uh if you go in there you can ask that question we'll get that right to Rob uh rivka Rothstein asks get what kind of official copyright process if any should we think about going through if we were to clone our own voice um if you clone the voice and own it then you just register with the copyright office the US copyright office it's simply fill out the form sound recording yeah you can you can you you record you're what you're cloning are the the sound recordings so you're not recording the actual you can't record the Clone voice because that's that's a that's a result like the voice The Voice pieces everything together and then comes out with another file right so you have to it's the data files that you have to copyright so the the the actual recordings that you made that they use to create your clone voice so those are that's what you register you just register them as sound recordings with the copyright office and then if those files are being used and you you know like if it's a straight clone and you can recognize you then that's a violation of copyright if it's the part where it's it's still up at air as if they're taking just little little Snippets little teeny pieces and they're C combining with 10 thousand other voices since they come up with a new voice like that's the part where the the copyright office you can't really enforce your copyright because you can't prove right that's it would be hard to determine anyway if they've created a uh a homogeneous voice of lots of different people right Elizabeth Oaks asks are there any big court cases pending that we should watch she was disappointed with the recent dismissal of some of the cases in the Sarah Silverman uh generative AI case the the cases that everyone are watching are the ones against chat PT the ones uh brought by the New York Times brought by the photographers and brought by the the artists those are the ones to keep your eye on um that were the ones that deal with generative AI so we'll see what you know we're going to see where the courts come down on that um they're gonna if they say that uh it's you know you only have to prove a little teeny piece and then you're protected or if they're going to say that you you need to have more proof that it's you or your work and then the other thing is keep your eye on the copyright office because the copyright office like I said they're not filing any new copyrights for generative AI so if for instance like I my dog my dog example earlier if I want a picture of a dog a unique dog and I go on chat GPT and it comes brings me this nice new combined dog I don't want to copyright that I use it at a child children's book or something and I want to copyright it the copyright office is gonna say they're going to deny the copyright my that actually happened to my daughter my daughter wrote a children's book she hired an illustrator the illustrator went un chat GPT and to do all the illustrations and the copyright office denied denied her copyright so um again this is brought to you by World voices. org uh feel free to join us if you're not a member and you get to uh find out all these great questions and uh answers because that's what we have um again this this will be available on uh on on our website uh if you go into if you're a member we can uh we will post this in the uh the world voices website and uh you'll be able to watch this again if you missed some of it or all of it uh I guess to finish up uh Rob again why don't we review what are some of the things that people can do to make sure that they're protecting themselves read the fine print well so let let me talk about this a little bit because I I also the thing that I've seen that is a little disturbing to me actually a little humorous people are focused so much on AI that they're missing all the other bad language in contracts that are screwing up over so yes protect yourself from AI so put something in make sure there's something in the contract that says that they're not going to use your files for to clone your voice or for machine learning right yes put that in there but don't forget about the rest of the contract like the rest of the contract may have bad things in there too that you want to so you can't just like sure AI is something is something to think about but it's just added to the list of things that you needed to think about before right so that's I'm seeing a very hyperfocused concentration of people just look reviewing contracts for AI stuff and they're forgetting all the other stuff that that they have to look out for in contracts so you know put make sure that you have make sure if the contract doesn't say already that if they're not going to use your your files for um cloning purposes or machine learning purposes that you add that to the contract so that's for this issue but don't forget to review the whole contract as well all righty well thanks everybody for joining us this morning this has been very enlightening Rob if they want some legal help where do they go about this so they can come to my website which is Rob Sig esqr oci gq.com and I also just started up a membership program beginning of the year called the ATT on demand Pay a monthly fee and you get one contract review per month one draft per month you get discounts on free copyrights you get discounts on trademarks and llc's and it's just for artists so attorney on demand.com Welly thanks for all your expertise Rob you're just a wealth and knowledge on this and um I guess to summarize be proactive be aware read the fine print stay with it stay with the Trends on this because they're developing fast and read between the lines on auditions be between the lines yeah if they're asking you to read a whole bunch of lines you're going to read 10,000 words automatically think that's for some kind of ey job like automatically think so just read between the lines on what they're asking you all right well thanks for everybody for joining us this morning we appreciate your your attendance uh I'll also post this on our uh our Facebook page so if you missed it you'll be able to see it there too as well Rob thanks again so much for joining us this morning and uh for continuing your legal eagle attack at all this stuff and letting us all know what's going on out there my pleasure alrighty take care everybody we'll see you for our next webinar which is we're not sure where it's going to be but we got lots of topics you'll be good though yeah if you H if you have a topic you'd like us to cover please let us know uh at infoworld voices. org we'll be glad to hear from you take care have a great have a great week everybody