George Carlin‘s estate has settled a lawsuit over an AI-generated imitation of the late comedian, with the creators agreeing to remove it from their YouTube channel and podcast feed.
In January, the Dudesy podcast released “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” which purported to be an hour-long special created by artificial intelligence. Carlin died in 2008, but the special featured a sound-alike voice doing Carlin-esque material on contemporary topics like trans rights and defunding the police.
The estate sued, alleging that the special violated the estate’s copyrights and its publicity right to Carlin’s name, image and likeness.
I have a few questions, and I am honestly asking from sheer lack of knowledge on how to even look this up.
From what I have read, you don’t exactly have copyright of your own likeness, but rather rights to how you can restrict its use for privacy/publicity/commercial reasons. But that applies to you alone. Does your next of kin inherit the rights from you automatically? Can you convey those rights after death? Do people actually do that?
I’m genuinely interested to know if this case was even possible. It’s definitely in poor taste, but despite that it is an interesting experiment and admittedly a good mimicry. Should we expect more like this, or less?
The law regarding likeness is much less unified than copyright. It even differs significantly between US states, not to mention internationally. So there’s no simple answers to these questions.
Here’s the WP page on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
I’m no expert, so I don’t know if it’s good. I’d take it with a grain of salt.
As to the case, here’s an analysis by copyright lawyer Aaron Moss:
https://copyrightlately.com/carlin-estates-lawsuit-over-fake-comedy-special-may-be-doa/
Thank you for the read. I figured this one was a thorny issue without even considering the locale/jurisdiction aspect.
From the looks of it, this is an issue that is likely to have to be fought in court to deliver some precedent or legislation will have to directly target this… And that’s just the American side.
I’m honestly glad these comedians and the Carlin family were able to come to a reasonable settlement, so that the Carlins themselves didn’t have to be part of this eventual circus. I feel like George himself would find this scenario pointless and loathsome, and I only wish I could hear the real him talk about it haha.