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George Carlin estate sues over fake comedy special purportedly generated by AI

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday asks that a judge order the podcast outlet, Dudesy, to immediately take down the audio special, “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” in which a synthesis of Carlin, who died in 2008, delivers commentary on current events.

Carlin’s daughter, Kelly Carlin, said in a statement that the work is “a poorly-executed facsimile cobbled together by unscrupulous individuals to capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill my father established with his adoring fanbase.”

The Carlin estate and its executor, Jerold Hamza, are named as plaintiffs in the suit, which alleges violations of Carlin’s right of publicity and copyright. The named defendants are Dudesy and podcast hosts Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen.

PP_BOY_ ,
@PP_BOY_@lemmy.world avatar

This is great. There was no reason for there to be any mention of George Carlin in the video’s title, especially not crediting it to him and especially not with a title like that. I’m curious if the creator ever sat back and thought that what they were doing was wrong.

A real AI comedian trained by living comedians would be an interesting feat, but coming right out the gate with the first real example being such a blatant theft of likeness sours so much opinion people will have on the idea in the future.

dhork ,

I agree with you, and think that people are overplaying the AI hype. People think that training an AI is like training a human, and that’s not really true.

But even if it were, what this guy is doing with his AI goes beyond that. I think anyone would agree that there is nothing preventing a new comedian from binging on all the George Carlin material, then making their own show, under their own name . But if that human literally put on a George Carlin mask and billed their show as “George Carlin”, his estate would (rightfully) get upset, even though everyone understands this can’t be the real George Carlin. Why should this guy get a pass just because he had an AI do all the hard work of writing the jokes?

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

Did you try watching it? The first minute or so is nothing but disclaimers that this isn't "really" Carlin, and the AI itself makes numerous jokes about its AI nature throughout the special. There's no false credit going on here.

girlfreddy OP ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

If the creators didn’t get permission to use Carlin’s name and image, they deserve to be sued.

They could just as easily have generated an image to use if they didn’t want to be taken to court. Instead they will have an expensive FAFO episode.

commie ,

If the creators didn’t get permission to use Carlin’s name and image, they deserve to be sued.

wrong. the man is dead. do you think i should be sued by the lincoln estate for wearing a tophat and counting my drinks by the score?

girlfreddy OP ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

Maybe check on copyright and estate laws, so you can understand what’s being discussed here.

commie ,

i understand.

if the law supports it, the law is wrong.

commie ,

don’t be condescending.

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

They could just as easily have generated an image to use if they didn’t want to be taken to court.

I don't know what you mean by this.

girlfreddy OP ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

AI can be used to generate images of people. So they could have generated an image, put a fake name - or no name at all - on it, and gone ahead with the “comic relief”.

Instead they co-opted Carlin’s name and face.

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

Ah. You haven't actually watched the video in question, then. At no point did they ever use Carlin's face.

neurogenesis , (edited )

Nobody should watch it, because AI is bad. /s?

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

If you're going to complain about things that it did then it kind of behooves you to know whether it actually did them.

CodeName ,

Someone could snip out a joke and claim it was Carlin. Then the disclaimers are meaningless. This happens on the internet all the time.

Writing a comedy set (ai or not) and then having a Carlin bot read it out and then releasing it under his name is definitely crossing some major lines. I’m not sure what the legality of it is at this point, but if it is legal it shouldn’t be.

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

Someone could snip out a joke and claim it was Carlin.

Then that someone has done something wrong.

I could dig up one of your old comments, snip out something from one of them out of context, and use it to defame someone. Should you be hauled off to court for having posted that comment? I haven't even done it yet.

trebuchet ,

For what it’s worth, this whole thing is almost definitely not generated by AI. See arstechnica.com/…/did-an-ai-write-that-hour-long-…

They’re comedians claiming it’s generated by AI as a kind of commentary and schtick. The creators directly compared it to the similar schtick of pro wrestling at one point.

yuriy ,

Hang on, I’ve just assumed this whole time that it was a Carlin impersonator who actually performed the whole special, and then just used AI for the face and voice. Did people actually think this was created by typing some variation of “gimme new george carlin” into GPT or some shit?

DontMakeMoreBabies ,

Wonder what Carlin would think about his kid/estate getting pissy that someone did something subversive?

HikingVet ,

Ripping off George Carlin with AI isn’t subversive.

DontMakeMoreBabies ,

Demonstrating that an entire job class is about to get fucked into oblivion sure seems subversive to me!

Also, Carlin is fucking dead. How do you rip off a corpse?

PP_BOY_ ,
@PP_BOY_@lemmy.world avatar

username DontMakeMoreBabies

For some reason I don’t think this is much of a concern for you

CoffeeJunkie ,

It is possible to be concerned & also not wish to personally add to the problem.

gapbetweenus ,

Carlin is fucking dead. Who cares what he might think?

girlfreddy OP ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

Carlin’s daughter isn’t and it’s Carlin’s estate that’s suing.

gapbetweenus ,

It was a joke, playing with a comment person I replied to made later.

bappity ,
@bappity@lemmy.world avatar

oh no I got too many downvotes >_< it’s just a joke guys I swear! I’m only joking around!!

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Good. I don’t care if it’s really AI or not. It’s fucking tasteless. Even if they lose this suit, I’m glad they did it just on principle.

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

If they lose the suit then that establishes precedence that this is legally fine.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

That has to be established one way or another.

bappity ,
@bappity@lemmy.world avatar

I gave that “special” a watch and it felt like an insult

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

It was more like a political rant with almost no comedy

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

There are those who would describe the actual Carlin's specials this way.

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

Whereas I watched it and I rather enjoyed it.

guyrocket ,
@guyrocket@kbin.social avatar

I watched a few minutes of this. Awful. This guy should be sued for wasting everyone's time.

magnetosphere ,
@magnetosphere@kbin.social avatar

I know all the good domain names have been taken… but even when scraping the bottom of the barrel, they could have done better than “Dudesy”. What the fuck, people.

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