The actor told an audience in London that AI was a “burning issue” for actors.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fair enough. It’s not theft, it’s something else.

      But that’s just semantics, though.

      The point is that his voice is being used without his permission, and that companies, profiteering people, and scammers will do so using his voice and the voices others. He likely wants some kind of law against this kind of stuff.

    • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      If you made a painting for me, and then I started making copies of it without your permission and selling them off, while I might not have stolen the physical painting, I have stolen your art.

      Just because they didn’t rip his larynx out of his throat, doesn’t mean you can’t steal someone’s voice.

      • ThenThreeMore@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        We’re getting into samantics but it’s counterfeit not stolen.

        It would be more like if you made a painting for me, and I then used that to replicate your artistic style and used that to make new paintings without your permission and passed it off as your work.

      • drekly@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Well, I just printed a picture of the Mona Lisa.

        Did I steal the Mona Lisa? Or did I just copy it? Reproduce it?

        • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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          1 year ago

          You’re also not causing da Vinci to potentially miss out on jobs by copying it. You’re also not taking away his ability to say no to something he doesn’t want to be associated with.

          • drekly@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That’s fine. I’m not arguing this is a bad thing, I’m just being pedantic about the word theft.

            Having your voice used to say things you didn’t say is a terrifying prospect. Combined with deep faking takes it one step further.

            But is it technically theft?

        • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          No, the use of words matter when having a debate. “Theft” is an emotionally charged word that has a lot of implications that don’t actually map well to what’s going on here. It’s not a good word to be using for this.

          • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Seems to map pretty well. I’ve looked up a handful of definitions of theft and looking at it from an emotionless perspective it seems to fit. To take something without permission or the right to. I don’t really see where the removal of a finite resource is required.

            Thats why I figured that comment was just a dad joke.

            • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              When you steal something the person you stole it from doesn’t have it any more. That’s why copyright violation is covered by an entirely different set of laws from theft.

              This isn’t even copying, really, since the end result is not the same as anything in the source material.

              Lots of people may want it to be illegal, may want to call it theft, but that won’t make it so when they take it to court.

              • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                “When you steal something the person you stole it from doesn’t have it any more.”

                Idk “identity theft” is a crime but you don’t actually remove the persons identity from them either. And also digital reproduction like in the case of piracy doesn’t remove a copy from the author but that is also illegal and is also considered theft. So I’m not really sure where you’re getting this idea that something isn’t both considered theft and a crime if it doesn’t remove a copy from the original owner, there are multiple examples to the contrary.

                • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  The point is loss. You have to show you were damaged. In this case fry isn’t losing anything.

                • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  And also digital reproduction like in the case of piracy doesn’t remove a copy from the author but that is also illegal and is also considered theft.

                  No, it is considered copyright violation. That’s a crime too (well, often a civil tort) but it is not theft. It’s a different crime.

                  If you want something to be illegal there needs to be an actual law making it illegal. There isn’t one in the case of AI training because it isn’t theft and it isn’t copyright violation. This is a new thing and new things are not illegal by default.

                  Calling it “theft” is simply incorrect, and meaningfully so since it’s an emotionally charged and prejudicial term.

                  • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    You skipped the identity theft part because I guess it kinda takes all the wind out of your argument lol.

                    Even then, “Theft” isn’t a single unique crime or law that’s distinct from copyright infringement, it’s an umbrella term. What you’re thinking of as the crime of “theft” is “larceny”, which actually does refer to taking physical property specifically. But Stephen Fry didn’t use the term Larceny here.

                    Copyright infringement when dealing with the theft of intellectual property is a type of theft. And since the rights to your voice and or performance is a thing you can own, it can easily be considered theft. It doesn’t need a new law, it’s just a new way to commit an old crime.

        • OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It’s not copyright infringement. You can’t copyright a style, which is basically what a voice amounts to.

          This is something new. It’s a way of taking something that we always thought of as belonging to a person, and using it without their permission.

          At the moment the closest thing is trademark infringement, assuming you could trademark your personal identity (which you can’t). The harms are basically the same, deliberately passing off something cheap or dodgy as if it was associated with a particular entity. Doesn’t matter if the entity is Stephen fry or Pepsi Max.

          • gregorum@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            It is, as a matter of fact. When Fry recorded his voice for those audiobooks, they were copyrighted. Reproducing the contents of those works as they have is, arguably a violation of copyright.

            And when you compare Steven Frye to Pepsi Max, that’s a false equivalence, because you’re comparing a copyrighted material to a trademarked brand which are two different things.

            Still, to your point of theft, nobody is taking anything from anyone. They are using something without permission, and that still falls squarely as copyright infringement, not theft.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Reproducing the contents of those works as they have is

              This did not occur.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  That’s not reproduction of content so isn’t a copyright violation. Not shouldn’t be. Literally right now is not.

                  The whole reason people are so up in arms about this is that we do not currently have laws or even standards that accurately police this kind of thing.