<story><title>David Attenborough is now narrating my life</title><url>https://twitter.com/charliebholtz/status/1724815159590293764</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chankstein38</author><text>What if my voice sounded like Tom Waits or Morgan Freeman and I did commercials?  It doesn&amp;#x27;t and I don&amp;#x27;t I&amp;#x27;m just curious how this makes sense.  Is it just if the voice is advertised to sound like him?</text></item><item><author>kevinmchugh</author><text>You can&amp;#x27;t use a Tom Waits (or Morgan Freeman) sound-a-like because you&amp;#x27;re profiting off their work and likeness. Unless the celeb sells a licensed sound-a-like.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;faroutmagazine.co.uk&amp;#x2F;when-tom-waits-sued-doritos&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;faroutmagazine.co.uk&amp;#x2F;when-tom-waits-sued-doritos&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>pcthrowaway</author><text>Why would Morgan Freeman be entitled to royalties for a commercial where the voice over sounded similar to his voice... unless he actually sold the rights to represent him with a vocal likeness in the commercial (AKA he didn&amp;#x27;t do the voice over, but the commercial was able to claim the voice over was by Morgan Freemen, or that it represented Morgan Freeman&amp;#x27;s opinions... like when a book by a celebrity is actually written by someone else)</text></item><item><author>woleium</author><text>I expect the existing laws will be extended. I had a colleague tell me about looking into how much Morgan freeman wanted for a 15s commercial ($$$$$$). The alternative he used was a “sound alike” voice actor, for which Morgan Freeman received royalties to the tune of $$$$$.</text></item><item><author>iris2004</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a neat demo. I don&amp;#x27;t know how I feed about cloning the voice of a living person, even a &amp;#x27;public&amp;#x27; figure like a presenter. I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if it eventually becomes illegal, although it&amp;#x27;ll likely be as difficult to enforce as normal casual copyright infringement.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jrockway</author><text>Sounds like a similar situation to someone named Mike Rowe starting a software company: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>David Attenborough is now narrating my life</title><url>https://twitter.com/charliebholtz/status/1724815159590293764</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chankstein38</author><text>What if my voice sounded like Tom Waits or Morgan Freeman and I did commercials?  It doesn&amp;#x27;t and I don&amp;#x27;t I&amp;#x27;m just curious how this makes sense.  Is it just if the voice is advertised to sound like him?</text></item><item><author>kevinmchugh</author><text>You can&amp;#x27;t use a Tom Waits (or Morgan Freeman) sound-a-like because you&amp;#x27;re profiting off their work and likeness. Unless the celeb sells a licensed sound-a-like.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;faroutmagazine.co.uk&amp;#x2F;when-tom-waits-sued-doritos&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;faroutmagazine.co.uk&amp;#x2F;when-tom-waits-sued-doritos&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>pcthrowaway</author><text>Why would Morgan Freeman be entitled to royalties for a commercial where the voice over sounded similar to his voice... unless he actually sold the rights to represent him with a vocal likeness in the commercial (AKA he didn&amp;#x27;t do the voice over, but the commercial was able to claim the voice over was by Morgan Freemen, or that it represented Morgan Freeman&amp;#x27;s opinions... like when a book by a celebrity is actually written by someone else)</text></item><item><author>woleium</author><text>I expect the existing laws will be extended. I had a colleague tell me about looking into how much Morgan freeman wanted for a 15s commercial ($$$$$$). The alternative he used was a “sound alike” voice actor, for which Morgan Freeman received royalties to the tune of $$$$$.</text></item><item><author>iris2004</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a neat demo. I don&amp;#x27;t know how I feed about cloning the voice of a living person, even a &amp;#x27;public&amp;#x27; figure like a presenter. I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if it eventually becomes illegal, although it&amp;#x27;ll likely be as difficult to enforce as normal casual copyright infringement.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>golergka</author><text>&amp;gt; The agency came back to Frito-Lay with a parody song inspired by Tom Wait’s ‘Step Right Up’, featuring the same Carni hollerings as the Small Change track&lt;p&gt;If you did straight-up parodies of their songs, yes.</text></comment>