New York State is trying to ban 'deepfakes' and Hollywood isn't happy

Bullshit

"It would make biopics about actors, musicians, or athletes impossible, according to an memorandum written by the MPAA."

Bollocks, just ask the subject* for consent. And f*cking pay them their dues. Simple.

*or estate.

Perpetual copyright/consent works both ways.

Leftfield idea : Why not prosecute, and jail, such twunts for making such fake statements?

Follow the money

So this would mean that Hollywood would have to pay people to use their likeness?

They don't want that, they want too use it for free...

A08155 Summary: Establishes the right of privacy and the right of publicity for both living and deceased individuals; provides that an individual's persona is the personal property of the individual and is freely transferable and descendible; provides for the registration with the department of state of such rights of a deceased individual; and that the use of a digital replica for purposes of trade within an expressive work shall be a violation.

Good heavens, do these people not value fine eighteen century Japanese erotic prints? NSFW

It's come on

It really does beat 3d recreations like that awful scampering dead-eyed implike fake Hepburn in that Galaxy ad. Quite astonishing quality compared to a few months ago, imagine being able to recast any movie or TV feature on the fly; voice emulation technology is already there.

I know why Disney is against it

That's their plans for Star Wars XVI and Marvel Superhero Film 60 up in smoke.

But woe betide anyone who copies their badly-drawn 90-year-old mouse though.

Ain't going to work

I can see this working for Germany and countries which have cut-n-pasted that paragraph from the German constitution such as Russia and Eastern Europe. They establish the honor of the individual as a constitutional right (*).

For good or for bad, there is no constitutional protection for one's honor in USA constitution. There is nothing of the kind in common law either. Your honor is a fair game and is trumped by everything before it in the queue such as the right to free speech in USA constitution.

As a result the lifetime of this law is up to the first court. The first court will terminate it with extreme prejudice on first amendment grounds.

* _{In the RF constitution it is paragraph 23 - the same one which establishes the right to privacy of correspondence as a constitutional right. I can't be arsed to look for the actual number in others before my 5th intravenous espresso.}

If it's labeled as fake how is it fraud ? And how can folk own their image when anyone in the street can photograph them ? All seems over the top to me.

This will, of course, mean that to work on a Hollywood movie you need to sign over the rights to use your image for digitally reconstructed stuff later.

Which means Harvey Weinstein would still have had the ability to legally make porn of any actress who worked for him.

.....and what of the mouse?

Entertainment companies like Disney, NBCUniversal and several others represented by the trade association The Motion Picture Ass. of America (MPAA) have hit back, declaring the bill to be too restrictive to creativity and storytelling

Presumably they'll be happy if I start creating deepfakes of Mickey Mouse doing whatever the hell I like then? No? Hmmm, hypocrisy in action, again.

Oliver Reed in Gladiator - though he was partly through filming before he passed on. Carrie Fisher in Star Wars Rogue One ditto - though she'd completed her filming, they used CGI to recreate a c. 1978 Ms Fisher. Peter Cushing, similarly recreated, was sadly long gone.

It seems Lucas Film are routinely making 3D scans of all their actors (and puppets) for future reference:

https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a19742240/lucasfilm-digitally-scanning-faces-star-wars-cgi-princess-leia/

All fakes, not just deepfakes

So this law would apply to fake pictures too, I presume? Since there seems to be a plethora of photoshopped porno pictures out there, then this would apply to them, surely?

And if it passes, what about offensive memes using a persons likeness?

Either way, you'll end up with one of two things. Either the first amendment will trump it, as long as the produces make some sort of disclaimer (parody, satire, entertainment only), or you get to censor any and all pictures and movies.

How on Earth do they intend to enforce this? Good luck with getting any deepfakes taken down or prosecuting the creator if the content is being served up from a web site hosted in Russia.

Too easy to circumvent

This is an entirely pointless "something must be done" stunt. There's a massive and obvious loophole in the proposed law, especialy this bit: “Use of a digital replica of an individual shall constitute a violation if done without the consent of the individual if the use is in an audiovisual pornographic work in a manner that is intended to create and that does create the impression that the individual represented by the digital replica is performing,”

If you're making deepfake porn, put a disclaimer at the start video saying that it isn't really (insert celebrity name) in the video, and you're in the clear.

If anything, the legislation is too narrow. Why just pornography? Why would it be permissable in advertising, in politics, in anything - to pretend (convincingly) that X said or did something they did not say or do?

(Before anyone suggests this would outlaw impressionists - there's a huge difference between a body adopting someone else's mannerisms and someone else co-opting their image.)

Bah!

Can we at least ban the use of the term "Deepfakes"?

It is uninformative.

If you are proud of your work, whoever is making this stuff, call it what it is: Fakeporn.

Bah!

Hmm, Disney weighing in?

I be we'll see their attitude change smartish when a whole new series of cartoons come out featuring such faves as Princess Jasmine and Mulan.

How does this affect Impersonators?

Scads of folks making a living based on their resemblance to someone famous. I can't even count the Elvis impersonators I've seen in my life. So now they're illegal? They're using the famous persona in "trade".

Possible loophole? What if we simply don't use the Famous Name? That's not a fake of Paris Hilton, that's "Airhead", a character loosely based on Paris. Etc.

Possible defense? That's not a fake of Paris Hilton, that's modified media of Ellen Carwood, who just happens to look like Paris Hilton, and has given full consent to the alterations.

Not just video

Writing in the same style – anonymously – as any well-known public figure, actor or actress, etc. could be taken for writing by that person.

Who shall be first?