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Comment by __loam | Hacker News Reader

It's illegal to use someone's likeness without their knowledge in a lot of places.

What's the timeline on that sort of thing?

Like I'm sure that some relative of Elvis Presley was paid for the Elvis movie that was recently released, but is anyone going to get paid for those new Napoleon movie/miniseries?

> is anyone going to get paid for those new Napoleon movie/miniseries

At some point things enter the public domain, and facts aren't copyrightable.

That is correct, we are talking about when things enter the public domain, specifically the likeness of an individual.

Headline actors are inevitably going to be (already are?) selling the rights to their voice and likeness, setting up perpetual revenue streams for their estates, and in the next few years the parameters of those rights will almost assuredly be in every contract.

It might be inevitable but they're currently on strike in part to avoid selling those likeness rights.

That could be amended in an explicit contract or quit the union. Say you are very sick/old/whatever/dontcare and need some money and have not had a gig in 10 years? I am will to bet we see a few of those soon. Then soon after the rise of the 'scanned' actor with no such contract but one that gives away those likenesses. They will be bought in packs like game assets.

>It's illegal to use someone's likeness without their knowledge in a lot of places.

It's illegal to use their likeness claiming that it is actually them. I fail to see how AI voices are legally any different at all than using a human impersonator.

They're not.

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