Damn, I wonder if people will have to include something in their wills against their likeness being used like this. Imagine your descendents selling the rights to your likeness and it being used to promote views you disagree with, capitalising on the reputation you had before your death.
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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There's already a thing called "likeness rights" that actors have. Presumably the filmmakers in this case made a deal with whoever inherited those rights when James Dean died.
The article has a bit on this:
In general, when a celebrity dies, "rights to publicity" pass on from the celebrity to next of kin, or to the party granted these rights in a will. But Kahn says even a will, which will usually dictate who will benefit financially from the commercial use of the dead celebrity's image and likeness, holds limited legal weight since "it's not like a contract because it's a one-way document". The power for how that person's image is used passes to their living executor.
People need to realize that dead people do not have rights, only living people have rights. A dead person can't go to court.
Gunna get a Don't Reanimate sticker on my driver's license.
But you can be a background Extra in the Never Been Kissed Reboot!!!
According to the articles, even putting something specific in your will won't actually prevent it under the current laws.
That's hilariously wrong.
Dear H. Ford,
We are sorry to hear that you would like to stay dead. But here at Disney we just love this dying wish for you, your gunna be in India Jones 12. And 13... And....21... And......
But Kahn says even a will, which will usually dictate who will benefit financially from the commercial use of the dead celebrity's image and likeness, holds limited legal weight since "it's not like a contract because it's a one-way document". The power for how that person's image is used passes to their living executor.
If Harrison Ford dies his next of kin inherit his rights to his image and likeness. Even if his will expressly states that they're not allowed to license those rights, there are ways to contest the will in court and those restrictions don't last in perpetuity. The article says Robin Williams' restrictions expire after 25 years, for example. Don't know offhand if that's a legal standard or something specific to that will but I do know that there's a "rule against perpetuities" in most legal jurisdictions that can be used to invalidate a will if it places restrictions on a property that last too long.
James Dean died 68 years ago.
Robin Williams did that exact thing with Disney in his Aladdin contract
Well, toys less than actual computerized doppelganger. But all the same. Who's gonna call out The Mouse?
One remaining spark of light in this, I don't think an AI or indeed most writers could mimic anything like the frantic ad-libbing he was known and loved for. But I do think he was loved enough that 98% of the populace would see that movie just to see "him" in something again.
I don't think an AI or indeed most writers could mimic anything like the frantic ad-libbing he was known and loved for.
I'm not convinced. If you trained a model on all of his performances and scripts, I think it could generate something that could fool most people. Not everything it generates would be terrific, but even if only 1% is good, you just cut out all the rest.
And that's at the current state of tech.
I loved that scene with Garibaldi.
This feels so wrong to use someone's likeness withiut their permission after their passing
It's necromancy.
I don't see an issue if a living person wants to sign away their rights for this. But, if someone's already dead, and they were never asked, creating new material with their likeness should be off-limits.
A good use of the tech is to restore and enhance old films. That's exciting, this other thing is dildos.
After you're dead there's no way to get permission. It's up to whoever holds the rights to your likeness.
whoever holds the rights to your likeness.
what a gross phrase
If nobody holds the rights to your likeness then anyone can use them for whatever.
Y'know, in my darkest moments, I've taken solace in the fact that suicide would also mean I wouldn't have to partake in capitalism anymore.
This feels like literal hell. Not even suicide will let you escape.
You're not actually "in" the picture. The camera doesn't steal your soul.
Distinction without a difference
Howso? If you're dead then you've "escaped", the shuffling of pixels by living people after that has no effect on you. You've gone off to wherever it is that dead people go (be it an afterlife or nowhere at all).
If you're dead then you've "escaped"
From my perspective James dean sure hasnt
The filmmakers aren't going to literally bring him back to life. He's still staying dead.
It uses my likeness. This might lead people to believe, consciously or not, that I endorse the message, that's the point of the technology.
It doesn't matter if I or my likeness has convinced someone of a view in a practical sense, so does it matter morally?
I'm addressing your comment that "This feels like literal hell."
No, it doesn't. Once you're dead you don't feel any of this.
Yes, it does. I didn't write "this will feel like literal hell", I wrote "this feels [...]", as in I am currently experiencing said feeling.
That seems like even more of an overreaction to me. But I guess if you feel that way you feel that way. Maybe you should avoid the news for a while, there's going to be a lot more applications for AI like this one coming up.
Dude died in 1955. Who would even be excited about this, 80 year olds?
This movie is going to flop and hopefully Hollywood will learn the right lesson from it.
I'm in my 40s and I love James Dean. But I don't love a guy who looks and sounds like James Dean. I love the really talented actor James Dean who tackled his few roles in an incredibly charismatic and engaging way. I don't want to see an AI's interpretation of that.
That was my thought too, but according to Wikipedia, his estate still brings in $5M/year.
Thats just a different therm for "we grave robbery and violate peoples rights"
Come on thats crazy, why should they make new content with dead people? Should we bring back Marilyn Monroe? would it be enjoyable to watch movies or even a Ads of dead people, that are made by AI? Leave the dead where he is, its not a good idea to use dead actors/stars. Yes they had a success back in their era, but now its a new era, and we need something new not old. As for the rights, I believe they should ban any form of AI related in movies etc., it may be just the beginning.
The movie industry is allergic to any new ideas unless it can be used to regurgitate old ideas that are safe money makers. They'd rather people watch dead actors or the same plot twisted around for the millionth time because of nostalgia instead of trying something new.
In this situation I would stop watching movies.
Hell fucking no!
Monty Python got this right 50 years ago:
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Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I get the feeling that AI necromancy will be the next 3D. It'll be a fad for a few years, and then we'll wonder where "look kids, it's [dead/old actor]!" went. Maybe AI will find a useful place in film, maybe it won't, but I doubt it will be one of the main draws for very long.
The part that's interesting to me is for characters more than actors - but as someone else said - the AI also needs to emulate their style and such for it to be a compelling "performance". That said, I believe it'll be possible if there's enough pre-existing content to train on. GPT already can create written content "in the style of" well enough to be amazing to most average people.
What's interesting is how much these will be used followed. I'm thinking to many of the franchises - like Star Trek - where they've re-cast the characters, but current writing is so... let's say different.... that it still doesn't' really feel like the character. I'm not attached to Shatner - I don't watch shows because he's in them. I do like his portrayal of Kirk in the TV show and movies. But there's the current Actors (like when Chris Pine did his movies) don't like to "do an impression". Pine can and a good one - there's a SNL skit where he actually does a Shatner impression, and it was very on for the character IMO.
Are the current actors right? IDK - we don't usually get any sort of A/B testing for the wide public. That said - given the fan backlash on the newer franchise productions - there's a viewership who presumably would like a full recreation. Ahhh, but the other critique would be - it's not just the current actors, heck, many are excellent - it's the writing. I'd argue that's (like I said above) easier to do with current AI - if the producers and studios let an AI do an actual "in the style of" script.
What's my point? Hmmm, I'm actually interested in more affordable creation of new content in franchises that I liked, to the extent it actually fits with the existing content. I think we need to separate the characters from the actors - much like animated characters have been.
I tend to think this will play out as a tech demo if it happens. At least initially. Then we'll probably have the same split people have over all the other AI art - some people will love it for cheap content, others will feel it's completely "fake" (whatever they mean by that), and some will pay extra for "human made" stuff. Similar to furniture and other mass produced vs hand made ...
Damn that was super interesting to read. Thanks for the post. 👍
I figured this was coming some day. Do no one remember when Budweiser made that commercial using John Wayne?
That was the day I invasion that movies could be made with dead stars. Imagine a world where you could make a Grown Ups movie and actually have Chris Farley in the film as it was attended. Or bring back John Candy.
Ethical it probably wrong but growing up I thought of this many times and wonder what it would be like.
And the technology is almost there, almost prefected to a point that say in 10 years if stay the course you won't need to hire movie actors in the first place.
So from the perspective from the actors I would be totally against this. But as a fan of movies makes me excited.
But it isn't bringing those people back. It's bringing approximations of them back. AI John Candy won't make the comedic decisions and acting choices of the real John Candy. What you love is their talent, not their physical appearance and voice.
I disagree I believe we can bring those people to life on film. Take Chris Farley for example. You take all the films and the years on Saturday Night Live. Combine that with probably 100's of hours if not more of interviews and behind the scene footage. Then take everything every written by him. There is apparently 90% of his voice for the original Shrek movie out there. Add that too.
Put it all into an algorithm with AI and you could probably get pretty damn close short of having the real life person.
Watch and see if they decide to push forward with this technology (and seems rhey do) we could see tons of long dead actors come back to life in new movies and film.
So you're saying this AI knows comedy like Chris Farley knew comedy? Because I haven't even seen an AI that can tell a good joke yet.
There was also the commercial for prostate cancer research starring Bob Monkhouse, which was released in 2007, four years after his death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quxOMX1jl1w
At least in his case, the family granted permission to use his likeness because prostate cancer was his cause of death. An impressionist provided his voice for the commercial, not AI.
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