sweasel.com

If you wonder why small-time YouTube channels are now being narrated by David Attenborough or John Goodman, this is why: “You cannot copyright a voice. AI tools replicating a voice cannot be considered a copyright issue, as the original voice is not a copyrighted work.”

That’s the answer from Brave AI, so I can’t actually link to it. It goes on to say you have the right of publicity, which is a different area of IP law. What that means in terms of voice, I think, is that you only get in trouble if you claim the real David Attenborough or John Goodman narrated your videos.

I’d like to preserve my voice. Not that I like the sound of my own recorded voice – hardly anyone does – but I love the idea of my voice hanging around like a bad smell after I’m gone.

My mother got her first computer later in life, duh, but she took to it with great enthusiasm. That’s because she lived way back in the holler and she was lonely. She used the computer to build a circle of friends online. Bunch of frail old people who got together and told each other filthy jokes at night.

Anyhoo, one day when I was home for a visit, I waited until she left the house and re-recorded all the Windows system sounds. When she turned her computer on, it was my voice saying “hello, Mother.” When she turned it off, “goodbye, Mother.” Oh, I got them all. “I’m afraid something went wrong, Mother.” “Are you sure you want to do that, Mother?”

Hoo boy! She learned to undo all that in a hurry.

The image is what you get when you ask Starry AI to show you David Attenborough’s voice. Squinting at it, I think those things on the sides of his head are orphaned glasses earpieces. What those splotchy loopy things on his head are supposed to be, I have no idea. Silly AI.