CNN
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Actress Judy Garland never recorded her voice to read an audiobook of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but you’ll soon be able to hear her rendition of the children’s novel that inspired the film.
Earlier this week, AI company ElevenLabs announced that it would digitally produce Celebrity voiceovers from deceased actors including Garland, James Dean and Burt Reynolds have been added to its new Reader app. The company said the app takes articles, PDFs, ePubs, newsletters, eBooks or any other text on your phone and turns them into voiceovers.
“We deeply respect their legacy and are honored to have their voices on our platform,” said Dustin Blank, Head of Partnerships at ElevenLabs. “Adding them to our growing roster of narrators marks a major milestone in our mission to make content accessible in every language and voice.”
The company said it has reached agreements with the heirs of the actors whose voices are used, but did not provide details on compensation. The effort shows the potential of artificial intelligence to Hollywood has also set a precedent for licensing and collaborating with heirs. This move comes at a time when technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, particularly in the creation of images, text and sound, making it easy for anyone to create a version of someone’s voice saying something they never said.
This has, in turn, raised questions in creative industries such as journalism and film about how artificial intelligence can – or even should – be used.
ElevenLabs previously made headlines earlier this year when its tool was allegedly used to create a fake robocall from President Joe Biden urging people not to vote in the New Hampshire presidential primary.
Copyright and Authenticity Issues
The partnership with the stars’ estates comes two months after ChatGPT creator OpenAI came under fire after introducing a synthetic voice eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson’s character in the film “Her.” Johansson said in a statement shared with CNN that she was “shocked, angry and in disbelief” that the company would use her likeness. after turning down a partnership opportunity with OpenAI.
While it’s impossible to copyright your own voice, it is possible to copyright a recording, according to David Gunkel, a professor in the department of communications at Northern Illinois University who studies AI in media and entertainment. AI is trained on old recordings, and those recordings are copyrighted.
“ElevenLabs” “The new partnerships are all within the scope of what the law allows,” he said. “An estate will receive a significant amount of money through licensing and agreements. It’s a bit like a company negotiating a copyright deal to use a popular Queen song in an advert. The record company could also, in theory, refuse, no matter how much money they’re offered.”
Bern Elliot, vice president and analyst at market research firm Gartner, said AI models can now be trained on fewer audio recordings; very little is needed to capture tone, speech patterns and other elements, whether it’s a celebrity or an ordinary person.
“The biggest concern is what the owner of those recordings can or cannot do to monetize the voice,” he said.
Media companies are also stepping up their use of AI for voiceovers. Last week, NBC announced it would bring back an AI version of popular sportscaster Al Michaels to the Olympics this summer, in daily recaps on its streaming platform Peacock. An NBC spokesperson told CNN that Michaels was being paid for his participation.
It is unclear, however, how AI versions of well-known voices will be received by the general public and whether this will raise concerns about their authenticity.
“We don’t know the expected market for this type of content yet, but we can already see with audiobooks that those read by recognizable voices and celebrities are a hot commodity,” Gunkel said. “If there was a way to have a celebrity produce all kinds of content without speaking themselves, it could open up the market even more.”
