Welcome to the first all new edition of The Voice Magazine for 2024. This week, bringing on the new year seems to be on the minds of the writers, as we have a couple of articles examining various aspects of it.
For myself, I’ve started my graduate courses now and honestly, I’m already feeling a little bit overwhelmed. I’m not used to the idea of paced activities anymore, and it’s like they actually want you to think for these ones with significant readings and people making some informed comments in the forums about them and my imposter syndrome is definitely rearing its head.
On the other hand, and I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, being out of my depth is, in a way, exciting. The idea that I’m going to have to seriously work to keep up with several of my fellow classmates is an unusual one. Especially when you’re used to working in isolation and the only person you have to keep up with is yourself and your final deadlines.
Put all this together and I’ve essentially ignored the outside world for the past week, though I poked my head into it today and read about how some person online is essentially deep-faking George Carlin’s voice to create a new “special” staring the comic, who’s been dead for 15 years now. I’m quite the fan of Carlin, his comedy tends to be literate and educated, and in fact I use a short excerpt of it in the Voice Style Guide. However, I have little interest in this. If someone wants to make comedy in the style of Carlin, they have my support, go to it, the world needs more comedy of that nature. But if someone wants to use Carlin’s fame to increase their own, especially without giving proper due to him, in this case through his estate, then that’s a different matter, and the person should stop being a pathetic copyist and have the strength of character to achieve their own fame from their own efforts.
The creator contends that this is no different from an impressionist doing someone else, but I think he missed a couple of points that leave him eligible for a lawsuit. First, impressionists don’t tend to do a known figure for an hour-long stretch. Much as you can take a short excerpt of a book and be protected by fair use if it supports your point (or act, in this case) but can’t use longer excerpts, the work impressionists do, being short and being used to support their own act, which generally consists of multiple impressions could be seen as an extension of fair use. Copying the sound and style of a single comedian for an hour, however, goes beyond the idea of fair use, in my mind and into infringement of the character. The other factor is that for the impressionists, having the skill to do a convincing impression is the act itself. That’s how the impression supports it. Having an AI modulate your voice to match someone else’s is not a skill, thus cannot be protected as being something that is being supported.
Of course, right now, none of that actually applies because our laws have never had to consider this type of thing. It was not possible to make a perfect copy of someone’s voice using a machine, so there’s no laws against doing so. Just as there are no laws against carving up centaurs for food. However, a law is not the sole arbiter of right or wrong.
Meanwhile, this week, I’m happy to say that we’re starting the year off right with a brand-new Minds We Meet, plus we have a look at the Best Christmas Ever, an article which I think definitely lands itself in the “good reads” classification. And we round it out with a helping of blue rare, who is also looking at how the new year is probably one of the few times we all look toward what we hope our futures will be and what they might require, rather than being head down in the pursuit of it. Plus of course scholarships, events, advice, inspirational and thoughtful reflections and more! Enjoy the read!
