AI to voice the additional dialogue?

[Guest The_sextein]

I would go so far as to say that Jennifer Hale's opinion regarding a mod that someone else makes is totally irrelevant. If you decide to include Mazzy Fenton in a mod that involves views that she does not agree with it is of no real importance because Mazzy Fenton is not her character and she did not design the character or write her story or her script.  If you choose to make a mod about Mazzy Fenton then you can write whatever you want and make any missions you want with any script and you can voice act it any way you want as well.  If you choose to use an entirely different voice or a voice that is similar to hers, it is not important because you are not stealing a job from her and you are not making money off of something she contributed to.  You are also not misrepresenting her in any way.  If you wish to use AI to voice act a character that she did VA work for in the past it is of no concern to her as long as you don't try act like she voiced it.

Nobody owns the sound of a voice and you and the AI are the ones creating the spoken lines for the mod you are making.  If I were going to do a mod like that, I wouldn't even include any of Jennifer Hale's old voice lines even though I could since they are not owned by her and are free to be modified.  I would simply do a complete voice over from top to bottom.  Weather or not I decided to imitate Hale's voice work or not would be up to me as the artist making the mod.  Of course I would not go out of my way to disrespect someone who worked on a character who's voice work I was including in a story, but I wouldn't let it limit my creativity because what I do with my mods are of no concern to her unless I go out of my way to imply that she voiced the character or supported the views I included in my mod in some way.  Which of course none of would do because, what would be the point unless you were trying to troll her? If I had to consider the views of the people who created guns and cars before including them in a mod I don't think anyone would be able to create anything.

I generally agree with her views but they are totally irrelevant when it comes to fanfiction and modding game characters from 20 years ago.  Maybe someone will want to make a Mazzy Fenton mod 40 years from now and Jennifer Hale isn't even alive anymore.  Are we supposed to read up on all of her views out of fear that we might be disrespecting her wishes.  Besides, if you were not allowed to impersonate a character voice then voice actors wouldn't have a job either because most of their voices are not their natural one.  How can you make a law that says you can't make a similar sounding voice when acting your own script?  You can't.

[Thacobell]

"How can you make a law that says you can't make a similar sounding voice when acting your own script?  You can't. "
I'm sure this won't age poorly. Hey, anyone hear about voice actors cutting licensing deals for replicas of their own voices?

[Guest the_sextein]

Nothing I said previously was an opinion so of course it won't age poorly.  Every artist, voice actor, programmer and writer knows that the games they work on are legally modable.  None of them are going to care as long as you are not ruining their reputation by playing it off that they agree with the views in your mod or that they actively took part in your mod.  It's been like this since the 90's.   Look how many people do impressions of Gollum from lord of the rings.  Nobody is going to get sued and they don't have to hire Andy to play Gollum in the video games because that would be ludicrous.  They can hire an impressionist off the street or have an AI do it and nobody cares. 

Steam just released it's rules about AI generated content yesterday and they are fully behind selling games with AI generated assets as long as the development team claims that they are not breaking any laws.  If it turns out that some of the games they sell have AI generated content that infringes on copyright then they are not held responsible and each game development team must answer for their own decisions.  So they are selling AI generated content and you guys are crying about free mod content?  AI is a great tool for mod making and just because it allows corrupt conglomerates to abuse artists does not mean AI is to blame.  All artists need to do is have a clause in their contract regarding AI and everything will be ok.  You guys are like those sheep terrified of nuclear anything so you refuse to use power generated by anything but a coal plant because some Russian people got hurt by a reactor explosion way back in the cold war.  There is nothing to be terrified with regarding AI modding.  Personally, I would love to see Jahiera get some AI generated voice lines for SOD.  That would be a must have voice pack for me.  Your previous post added nothing to the conversation and blatantly trolled bob because I agreed with him and it made you mad so I would say that we don't even need to wait for your post to age poorly.  Relax, reality is not that hard to cope with.

[Guest the_sextein]

Also, you can't cut licensing deals for replicas of voices on a FREE MOD.  If you stay on topic you will notice that you have no argument here.

[BobT]

3 hours ago, Guest the_sextein said:

If you stay on topic you will notice that you have no argument here.

But "if you log eyes with an attractive dog".... 

[zenblack]

7 hours ago, Guest the_sextein said:

Also, you can't cut licensing deals for replicas of voices on a FREE MOD.  If you stay on topic you will notice that you have no argument here.

Steam specifically states that it doesn't infringe "you promise Valve that your game will not include illegal or infringing content, and that your game will be consistent with your marketing materials."

You don't get to decide what is and isn't infringing, you abide by what infringement means. That's what you don't seem to be getting. An artist has an agreement with the company in regards to what is an isn't infringing and their rights before AI existed and do not have specifications regarding AI which are then left to interpretation. But as the SAG strike demonstrated, that definition has to be clearly stated and agreed to by the artist.

Just because you want Darth Vader's iconic voice to be AI generated because you like Star Wars doesn't mean that Disney could have done it without the express consent of James Earl Jones (which he gave). Deciding for anyone what their mod includes that could be entangled in something they don't want, like copyright, isn't your decision, nor are do you have the right to have your mod hosted on a site that adheres to an ethical agreement based on it's owners desires.

Edited January 14 by zenblack

[BobT]

2 hours ago, zenblack said:

Steam specifically states that it doesn't infringe "you promise Valve that your game will not include illegal or infringing content, and that your game will be consistent with your marketing materials."

You don't get to decide what is and isn't infringing, you abide by what infringement means. That's what you don't seem to be getting. An artist has an agreement with the company in regards to what is an isn't infringing and their rights before AI existed and do not have specifications regarding AI which are then left to interpretation. But as the SAG strike demonstrated, that definition has to be clearly stated and agreed to by the artist.

Just because you want Darth Vader's iconic voice to be AI generated because you like Star Wars doesn't mean that Disney could have done it without the express consent of James Earl Jones (which he gave). Deciding for anyone what their mod includes that could be entangled in something they don't want, like copyright, isn't your decision, nor are do you have the right to have your mod hosted on a site that adheres to an ethical agreement based on it's owners desires.

You're still making comparisons to situations that focus on money being made, Steam, Disney, SAG stuff. These are all irrelevant to FREE mods that abide by fair / transformative use. Again, what about the Duke Nukem voice being the default for Teamspeak TTS? And the other thousands of iterations that use it. Think the VA for Duke gave his permission for all of them? And that's TTS where you "can make it say anything" oh no! Is that bringing the original VA into disrepute just because "Duke" says something? And that's with existing tools and iterations that have been around for over 20 years lol. Same thing, no outcry. 

No-one is also forcing or specifically expecting certain modders or mod sites to do anything, I accepted a member of the NPCProject team's response immediately, even if I disagreed with some parts of it. 

I really don't get why this is so hard to grasp. 

Edited January 14 by BobT

[Guest the_sextein]

Well we have been able to rewrite and change the story and make the characters do and say what ever we want and we have been able to add our own voice acting to replace the original voice actor as well as replace the art for that character with darth vader's and change the rules of the D&D system and so on a so forth for 20 years now.  Neverwinter in Baldur's Gate literally takes a story from another game and all of it's characters and VA voices and imports it into the infinity engine with art from pillars of eternity and it all uses the 2nd edition D&D system with consent from nobody.  You guys are worried about a digital tool that allows you to more accurately match a voice actor?  lol, all you have to do is state that the original VA has nothing to do with your mod and that it's a fanfiction released for free like every other mod for the last two decades which is of course, common sense.  They are not going to just come and shut down sites that host the mod and put some guy in jail out of the blue for making a silly video game mod.  If they had a problem with it (which they wont), They will tell you that they have a problem with it and threaten action against you before anything happens.  They will only do that if you are interfering with their current business plans.

Regarding steams agreement with AI,   I would think that it would be common sense that they couldn't get away with using Brad Pitt's voice for their main character without his consent but as mod makers we are not bound by those rules because we don't represent an official company with any authority and we are not making any claims that the character is acted by Brad Pitt and we are not making money off of it.  I can make Mazzy Fenton a sex obsessed freak that eats corpses and give her a portrait that looks like Darth Vader and a voice actor that sounds like Brad Pitt.  Nobody is going to do squat.  If they forced it to be taken down people would just reupload it all over the net like they always do and it would never go away.  Host it on github if you are worried about them coming after Gibberlings3. They can't stop us from modding our own products how we want to and they can't stop it from being uploaded and shared across the net for all time.  They are literally not capable of stopping us from doing it no matter how many people they try to sue for money that they will never be paid.

The point I was trying to make about steam is that AI is not the devil and it creates art based off of images of the real world just like humans do.  It does it more quickly and sometimes with more complexity but it has it's own flaws as well.  As long as the art that is being used for assets does not include visual pieces from another artist it is not a problem.  One way to avoid that is to train it using real world photos and then feed it pictures of your game graphics so that it uses ONLY reality and your studios art as a point for reference for training.  I was posting AI trained and upscaled backdrops from Baldur's Gate on Beamdog's forum years ago and nobody cared.  I was even talking with people from their team and they were watching the thread at the time.  With voice acting,  As I said before, you can't own a voice.  Two people can sound the same and you can't bring an artist to court because he happens to sound like Brad Pitt.  If they want to train an AI to mimic some "nobodies" voice that sounds like Brad Pitt then they don't need Brad Pitt's consent because it's not his voice they are copying.  Rest assured, once the actors of these iconic characters die, they will still be using new actors and digital tools to continue telling stories about super man, spider man and Darth Vader long after we have both kicked the bucket.  A corporation who covers it's back might contact the estate of the original actor just to avoid the parasites but game studios and especially mod makers are going to find loop holes like the one I just mentioned above that they can't do anything about. They can't even prove that you were trying to mimic the original VA with AI.  All you have to do is say that is not what you were doing.  You can put whatever voice you want in there.  I could do a convincing Gollum impersonation in place of Irenicus voice right now and I could have done it 10 years ago...nothing would happen and they can't prove that I was trying to impersonate Gollum.  I could say I heard some kid in school that sounded like that and decided to make it sound that way.  I could claim I have never even seen lord of the rings and they can't prove it no matter how many millions of dollars they spend on lawyers.  Yep I just dreamed it up.  No court is dumb enough to come after random joes because they have no chance of getting anything out of it.

[morpheus562]

38 minutes ago, Guest the_sextein said:

Well we have been able to rewrite and change the story and make the characters do and say what ever we want and we have been able to add our own voice acting to replace the original voice actor as well as replace the art for that character with darth vader's and change the rules of the D&D system and so on a so forth for 20 years now.  Neverwinter in Baldur's Gate literally takes a story from another game and all of it's characters and VA voices and imports it into the infinity engine with art from pillars of eternity and it all uses the 2nd edition D&D system with consent from nobody.  You guys are worried about a digital tool that allows you to more accurately match a voice actor?  lol, all you have to do is state that the original VA has nothing to do with your mod and that it's a fanfiction released for free like every other mod for the last two decades which is of course, common sense.  They are not going to just come and shut down sites that host the mod and put some guy in jail out of the blue for making a silly video game mod.  If they had a problem with it (which they wont), They will tell you that they have a problem with it and threaten action against you before anything happens.  They will only do that if you are interfering with their current business plans.

Regarding steams agreement with AI,   I would think that it would be common sense that they couldn't get away with using Brad Pitt's voice for their main character without his consent but as mod makers we are not bound by those rules because we don't represent an official company with any authority and we are not making any claims that the character is acted by Brad Pitt and we are not making money off of it.  I can make Mazzy Fenton a sex obsessed freak that eats corpses and give her a portrait that looks like Darth Vader and a voice actor that sounds like Brad Pitt.  Nobody is going to do squat.  If they forced it to be taken down people would just reupload it all over the net like they always do and it would never go away.  Host it on github if you are worried about them coming after Gibberlings3. They can't stop us from modding our own products how we want to and they can't stop it from being uploaded and shared across the net for all time.  They are literally not capable of stopping us from doing it no matter how many people they try to sue for money that they will never be paid.

The point I was trying to make about steam is that AI is not the devil and it creates art based off of images of the real world just like humans do.  It does it more quickly and sometimes with more complexity but it has it's own flaws as well.  As long as the art that is being used for assets does not include visual pieces from another artist it is not a problem.  One way to avoid that is to train it using real world photos and then feed it pictures of your game graphics so that it uses ONLY reality and your studios art as a point for reference for training.  I was posting AI trained and upscaled backdrops from Baldur's Gate on Beamdog's forum years ago and nobody cared.  I was even talking with people from their team and they were watching the thread at the time.  With voice acting,  As I said before, you can't own a voice.  Two people can sound the same and you can't bring an artist to court because he happens to sound like Brad Pitt.  If they want to train an AI to mimic some "nobodies" voice that sounds like Brad Pitt then they don't need Brad Pitt's consent because it's not his voice they are copying.  Rest assured, once the actors of these iconic characters die, they will still be using new actors and digital tools to continue telling stories about super man, spider man and Darth Vader long after we have both kicked the bucket.  A corporation who covers it's back might contact the estate of the original actor just to avoid the parasites but game studios and especially mod makers are going to find loop holes like the one I just mentioned above that they can't do anything about. They can't even prove that you were trying to mimic the original VA with AI.  All you have to do is say that is not what you were doing.  You can put whatever voice you want in there.  I could do a convincing Gollum impersonation in place of Irenicus voice right now and I could have done it 10 years ago...nothing would happen and they can't prove that I was trying to impersonate Gollum.  I could say I heard some kid in school that sounded like that and decided to make it sound that way.  I could claim I have never even seen lord of the rings and they can't prove it no matter how many millions of dollars they spend on lawyers.  Yep I just dreamed it up.  No court is dumb enough to come after random joes because they have no chance of getting anything out of it.

I think this falls flat entirely in implementation. Are you personally going to create a mod using AI voices derived from existing voice actors and their work or are you trying to convince modders to do this for you? If relying on convincing existing modders to do this, what skin in the game do you have? How much are you personally going to finance, right now, to incoming legal issues these modders are likely to face? You can 100% be in the legal right and get crushed in legal expenses to where you can't exonerate yourself in court. How much are you personally willing to assist a modder to do this given how vocal you are they should use ai to copy existing voice actors work?

[Guest the_sextein]

I'm not trying to convince anyone to do anything nor do I plan on making a mod like I described.  I'm simply stating what has been done and what can be done.  If I were to do these things there would be no costs dude.  Worst case scenario somebodies lawyer would call me and tell me to take the mod down or they would sue me.  That would only happen if I were getting in the way of some big corporation's business plans and if I complied then that would be the end of it but of course the mod would pop up all over the darknet and various third would servers that do not bend to U.N law and it would always be available and nobody could do anything about it.  If I was really worried about it, I would just release it that way and take no credit for it.  They would never know who made it or be able to force it down from the servers that were storing it.  Neverwinter in Baldur's Gate already exists and does FAR more damage then an AI voice emulation. It's actually using a copywritten story and script with corpo owned recordings of VA's and meshing it with a trademarked game engine and D&D game rule system with official art from Pillars of Eternity.  Thats official unmodified property from four major corporations squashed into a free download. 

Besides, the AI voice work  isn't an exact replica of the original VA so there is no way it would hold up in court and there is no way to prove beyond reasonable doubt that I was trying to copy the VA if I deny that is what I was doing.  You sound paranoid but the reality is common sense and right in front of your eyes 24/7.  My point is that you should do whatever you are confortable with but freaking out over a similar sounding voice that was created by a digital tool is peanuts compared to the average modifications I have seen done.  Icewind Dale in EET, Neverwinter in Baldur's Gate,    Mods that use AI generated art and  AI generated backdrops that add characters and items to the game.  Tweak packs that change the D&D rules. Romance mods that add sex scenes to the game involving official Bioware characters with AI altered music tracks ect ect.

[lynx]

The fact remains that this is taking work away from voice actors (original or not), so damage is being done regardless of any jurisdiction's opinion or actual enforcement. It might be a negligible revenue stream, but it is one.

[morpheus562]

6 minutes ago, lynx said:

The fact remains that this is taking work away from voice actors (original or not), so damage is being done regardless of any jurisdiction's opinion or actual enforcement. It might be a negligible revenue stream, but it is one.

Replica Studios is a pay to use service that has hired it's own voice actors to generate their AI models. For creating net new characters with their own unique voices, I would disagree this is taking work away from voice actors as I am paying them through their licensing agreement through Replica.

[Guest the_sextein]

The way I understand it, if you copied a spoken dialog track from an actor and inserted it into Baldur's Gate, the actors legal team would be forced to take action in order to protect the actor.  They would tell you to take the mod down and if you didn't then they would sue you.  If you did take the mod down they might sue anyway if the mod caused reputable damage or cost the actor money that they would want damages for.

If you are writing original dialogue then you are not infringing on copywritten material but there is still the possibility that you could be sued for taking their likeness.  To my knowledge that would be hard to do because it would have to be proven scientifically that the voice you provided was an exact replica of the actor ( which it won't be no matter how hard you try)  and that you were trying to imitate the actor, not the fictional character from the game.  If  you clearly state that it's not the VA and that you are trying to make it blend with the VA's performance of the fictional character then they would have nothing to go on.  If I make a hamburger it is not taking away from fast food employees.  You are allowed to make your own AI generated voices just like companies who are selling them are allowed to.  I could see buying an AI that was created with the permission of the voice actor for the purposes of using it in a product that is being sold.  However, with mods that are not being sold and an AI that you made yourself, you are good to go.  There is nothing they can do about it.

On a similar note, you can tell that GTA 6 is referencing the Florda joker in their trailer for GTA 6 but it's not an exact replica so nothing will happen.  Lindsey Lohan sued Rockstar for the same thing regarding GTA 5 and they tossed it out of court.  I'm pretty sure Rockstar understands the law really well and probably went over it with their lawyers before doing this so nothing will probably come of it but you never know.

https://in.ign.com/grand-theft-auto-vi/199524/news/gta-6-florida-joker-releases-new-video-explaining-why-his-case-is-different-from-lindsay-lohans

[lynx]

Sure, but the discussion is about existing voices.

[morpheus562]

1 minute ago, lynx said:

Sure, but the discussion is about existing voices.

My apologies, I took your "original or not" comment as referencing net new created characters.