[DECtalk] mod talker

Tony Baechler tony at baechler.net
Sun Aug 20 03:56:47 EDT 2006


Hi.  Actually, you're right on this.  It has been determined in the 
past that actors do own their voices and have creative rights in 
regards to how they are used.  In the case of an old time radio 
actor, the issues are more vague since there is a muddle over who 
owns what in regards to the shows, etc.  Using your example of 
President Bush, you are legally allowed under fair use to make 
parodies of him but couldn't have him read a book via a synthesized 
voice.  It would depend on what you would use the voice for but in 
general it's best to just keep those voices for yourself.  In general 
though, there are no specific laws since this somewhat falls under 
fair use but one should be very, very careful!  Someone could easily 
sue if they don't like what their voice said.  I'm imagining lots of 
science fiction plots where someone says something that they know 
they didn't really say but one has recordings of them saying it via a 
synthetic voice.

At 06:35 AM 8/18/06 -0400, you wrote:
>Oh, and I forgot one other very important factor...  Copyright!  Oh no, you
>all say, let's not bring that up again!  But it's true.  If someone did
>actually get a synthetic voice made from, say, a character from a movie, a
>radio announcer/talk show host, etc. obviously you could use it for personal
>amusement purposes, but even giving it away to others would probably be a
>big no-no.  I doubt if there are actually laws on this subject, but for
>anybody to be able to just download something and instantly be able to talk
>like President Bush, for example, would not be good in the least!  Here, we
>get into the person thus synthesized having his/her voice used for purposes
>he/she doesn't want, copyright/trademark concerns if it's a famous voice,
>impersonation concerns, etc.
>Jayson.


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