Using Deepfake in Trek... Yes or no?

[Pauln6]

Correct: majel’s voice have been recorded to be digitally recreated but hasn’t been used again since she died for whatever reason.

Some families might forbid this, Still were already seeing that other estates have no problem at all in selling the deceased’s likeness for digital recreations

I know John Byrne could only use the likenesses of certain actors in his New Visions photo stories. That said, all the main cast were included. Presumably the licensing arrangements are different if static images are being collated to create moving images via Deepfake.

 

[jackoverfull]

You need permission from the owners of the image, that is the person himself or their heirs, there is no difference anywhere.

 

[jackoverfull]

And yes, all the deepfake videos you see on YouTube such as “Silvester Stallone as terminator” or whatever are totally illegal and open the makers to being sued.

 

[antinoos]

are totally illegal and open the makers to being sued

They're not illegal. They're fair use.

 

[jackoverfull]

They're not illegal. They're fair use.

definitely not fair use. You can’t take the image of someone and make it seem he was performing something he never performed.

Also, you can’t modify someone’s work (in this case replacing parts of it) without permission. Which is why you can cover songs (there is a compulsory technical license) but can’t change the words. And yes, many do it anyway, but it’s still illegal.

 

[antinoos]

definitely not fair use. You can’t take the image of someone and make it seem he was performing something he never performed.

Also, you can’t modify someone’s work (in this case replacing parts of it) without permission. Which is why you can cover songs (there is a compulsory technical license) but can’t change the words. And yes, many do it anyway, but it’s still illegal.

Definitely very authoritative response without any citations. Here's a U.S. Supreme Court decision about Pretty Woman where the opening musical tag and the words from the first line were intact and rest of the lyrics and the music were changed and was considered fair use.

 

[jackoverfull]

Parody falls under fair use, replacing someone’s face like on this video is very different and definitely not parodical, educational or used in a limited and transformative form (when the latter applies is currently pretty much open to debate) .

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Also, and most importantly, using the likeness of a performer without authorization, especially in ways that could damage one’s reputation and honor, is a clear infringement of performers’ rights. In this case an uninformed viewer might really believe that mr Stallone was performing that scene, he could very well expect to win easily if he sued the author. If the video maker had instead explained the process, like in this video, such court case would stand on much shakier legs and the content would easily fall under fair use.

Spoiler: Mandalorian S2

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[jackoverfull]

On a side note, in 2015 a guy I was playing for decided to record me in 4 video clips and never paid me. He was stingy and didn’t engage a sound engineer at all, resulting in two of the audio recordings to be distorted.

Anyway, he later redid the audio of those two himself and put the videos on YouTube...Of course with pretty bad results: the music was bad and it looked I was playing it! He refused to remove them, but YouTube was quick in deciding he couldn’t use my image without permission, especially with me saying that the audio performance wasn’t actually mine, and removed the videos.

Given he kept uploading the videos on other services (most of which similarly removed them after being contacted) I brought him to court and won (he refused all offers of arbitration or settlement, so we got a final verdict...he had to remove the videos, pay compensation and refund legal costs).

This was under German law, but under the current revision of the Bern convention copyright law is pretty much the same almost everywhere.

 

[jackoverfull]

By the way, one of his early defenses was that “the work” didn’t have artistic value because I didn’t have any solo on the two tracks he redid (he removed the solo parts)...The judge refused this argumentation, but even if he hadn’t it probably wouldn’t have changed much, as our main issue was the use of my image without authorization and in a way that infringed on my reputation and honor.

 

[jackoverfull]

More on the parodic side: I can easily envision the day when a politician will be put in scenes from movies such as Forrest Gump or whatever for satirical purposes: it’s already being done and will only get more and more realistic...These seem to fall under fair use, but I really think we’ll see many interesting court cases anyway.

 

[Pauln6]

The Last of Us game used a CGI likeness of Elliot (nee Ellen) Page and eventually they agreed to tweak the likeness so that it didn't look so much like the actor.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Parody falls under fair use, replacing someone’s face like on this video is very different and definitely not parodical, educational or used in a limited and transformative form (when the latter applies is currently pretty much open to debate) .

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Also, and most importantly, using the likeness of a performer without authorization, especially in ways that could damage one’s reputation and honor, is a clear infringement of performers’ rights. In this case an uninformed viewer might really believe that mr Stallone was performing that scene, he could very well expect to win easily if he sued the author. If the video maker had instead explained the process, like in this video, such court case would stand on much shakier legs and the content would easily fall under fair use.

Spoiler: Mandalorian S2

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Please

On a side note, in 2015 a guy I was playing for decided to record me in 4 video clips and never paid me. He was stingy and didn’t engage a sound engineer at all, resulting in two of the audio recordings to be distorted.

Anyway, he later redid the audio of those two himself and put the videos on YouTube...Of course with pretty bad results: the music was bad and it looked I was playing it! He refused to remove them, but YouTube was quick in deciding he couldn’t use my image without permission, especially with me saying that the audio performance wasn’t actually mine, and removed the videos.

Given he kept uploading the videos on other services (most of which similarly removed them after being contacted) I brought him to court and won (he refused all offers of arbitration or settlement, so we got a final verdict...he had to remove the videos, pay compensation and refund legal costs).

This was under German law, but under the current revision of the Bern convention copyright law is pretty much the same almost everywhere.

don't

By the way, one of his early defenses was that “the work” didn’t have artistic value because I didn’t have any solo on the two tracks he redid (he removed the solo parts)...The judge refused this argumentation, but even if he hadn’t it probably wouldn’t have changed much, as our main issue was the use of my image without authorization and in a way that infringed on my reputation and honor.

post

More on the parodic side: I can easily envision the day when a politician will be put in scenes from movies such as Forrest Gump or whatever for satirical purposes: it’s already being done and will only get more and more realistic...These seem to fall under fair use, but I really think we’ll see many interesting court cases anyway.

four times in a row.

 

[jackoverfull]

Sorry.

 

[Char Kais]

No.

Star Trek needs to move on from legacy eras and prequels, especially Star Trek needs to stop meandering around in the TOS era.
Using Deepfake for legacy characters does not help.


Anyway, here are some humorous Deepfake examples:

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[Danlav05]

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OK this one really sells the idea.

By no means perfect, but leaps and bounds above the others!

 

[Pauln6]

I have been playing with Character Creator 3 and the Headshot plug in. Far from perfect since I had to scrape around for frontal images so lighting varies drastically, and I am going to struggle for appropriate hair, but so far, the characters are all recognisable.

I need to import hair and uniforms from Daz3d. This is quite tricky since they aren't fully compatible and I'm no digital artist.

I experimented with EVA suits for Kirk and Rand and it might be possible to introduce a bit more movement into my fan edit for the long shots. I can export an alpha channel from Iclone but I lack the skill to tweak the positions of the figures if the camera in the movie changes position.

 

[flandry84]

Wow I hadn’t seen that Shatner/jjverse video before.That’s amazing.

So can you shoot new material using a stand-in actor and then superimpose another actors face onto theirs?I’m really new to all this.

 

[jackoverfull]

Wow I hadn’t seen that Shatner/jjverse video before.That’s amazing.

So can you shoot new material using a stand-in actor and then superimpose another actors face onto theirs?I’m really new to all this.

in essence, this is what they’ve been doing since a few years and it’s getting easier and easier to do it.

 

[Danlav05]

Wow I hadn’t seen that Shatner/jjverse video before.That’s amazing.

So can you shoot new material using a stand-in actor and then superimpose another actors face onto theirs?I’m really new to all this.

Yes, you could. Then get Shatner to overdub the voice

 

[jackoverfull]

Well, that’s what mandalorian did recently with a certain actor. Such actor is however also a very flexible voice actor and able to sound like himself in his 30s while being in his 60s, I somewhat doubt that a 35 years looking Kirk with the voice of a 90 years old shatner would be very convincing.