Actors fear digital duping
p2p news / p2pnet: The saying goes, “If it talks like a duck and walks like a duck, then it is a duck.”
But America’s Paul Newman and Canada’s Christopher Plummer worry that’s not necessarily the case, and that someone might in fact steal their faces and other parts. So they want anti-doppleganger copyright legislation to be approved.
Together with another US actor, Charles Grodin, they say digital technology has made it possible for their films, images and voices to be duplicated and that the results could be used, “to produce another product they know nothing about,” says the Associated Press.
Newman said inexpensive computer software made it possible to produce a new movie by re-editing the original, says the BBC: “They could make a whole movie that looked like me, talked like me, acted like me, sounded like me, but wasn’t me.”
Plummer said the technology makes it, “increasingly possible for people’s image and voices to be used in material without any prior warning”.
Accordingly, the three, all of whom live in Connecticut, are supporting a state bill to, “forbid someone from using another person’s so-called ‘right of publicity,’ such as their name, voice, signature, photograph, image, likeness, distinctive appearance, gestures or mannerisms, for commercial purposes without proper consent,” says AP.
The legislation would extend that right of publicity during the person’s lifetime or for 70 years after the person’s death.”
But others are equally worried —– that the bill might be passed.
Through their MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, fear their, “rights of expression and their ability to use old footage of famous people in their movies” could be compromised, says AP.
Nineteen other states have passed similar laws, says the BBC.
Also See:
Associated Press – Actors back bill that protects their likenesses, March 24, 2006
BBC – Newman backs US image rights bill, March 24, 2006
March 25th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Pardon the sarcasm, but maybe the law should be expanded to include the foloowing “styles”:
Boxing – No one can fight like Ali
Dancing – Michael Jack would like this
Singing – No one like Elvis or the Beatles or Pavarotti
Painting – No one can paint like Picasso
Hey, has no one noticed that George Bush is a look and feel replica of comedian George Burns when young?
I get it… the $300 million or so that Newman has made off his good look sis not enough. He wants more?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
March 25th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
I dont think I live in the same country I was born into… The fact this moronic legal garbage is even being considered proves once again that the elected bastards we’ve put in office by popular vote have no clue what freedom is meant to be and have forgotten what it means to be an American.
I’m ashamed of our joke of a legal system and the fact that our country is a media-dictatorship.
Fuck the people who support this – they aren’t Americans.. They’re Nazis.
Just my 10 cents.
_-Jile-_
(sorry, got offended by the very thought of this…)
March 26th, 2006 at 2:41 am
its not even constitutional. everyone has parody rights under the first amendment. it’ll pass. want to know why?
Passing meaningless garbage as laws thats vaguely enforceable is the american way.
Now a days, everyone is a criminal. there is no such thing as a law abiding citizen. They don’t exist. Figments of all of our imaginations.
There’s a reason why you don’t argue or disrespect a police offer when they pull you over for no reason. that reason is that they can “find” more things to write you up on. Be it a crooked license plate sticker, rust spot on your license plate, or something hanging on your rear view mirror. All those are garbage because they really have zero impact on anything. Yea, i bet there is one idiot who has a 12 inch sombrero that hangs from their rear view mirror, but why can’t my grandparents hang their rosery there? The license plate stickers and rust spots, yea i’m sure there’s a few random situations when its an issue but 99% of the time they’re used to pull you over just because they want to snoop around.
Then you get into the city code enforcement folks. I passionately hate these people. You can’t put garbage cans in front of your house. You can’t keep a car in your driveway that doesn’t have license plates. Its considered abandoned. How you can abandon a car in your driveway is beyond me. Thats just a few i’ve seen in my neighborhood.
Let’s see what other bullshit have i seen. It’s illegal to pronounce the name of a town wrong, a $5 fine, but still. You can’t smoke in restaurants in most major cities now, even though they all had seperate smoking sections before that dumb ass law was passed. Dogs need rabies tags from the county that they are in, as if by some odd chance the rabies vaccine in my county is better.
I can’t keep the water company off of my property even though they were the dumbasses to put their equipment on private property. I can’t leave graffiti anywhere on my property for longer than 3 days. It’s illegal to be homeless, which they fine you for. how your supposed to find a place to live while paying exorbitant fines is beyond me.
Most service and utility companies make you sign contracts that say that you accept whatever changes they make to it without even seeing them.
All in all, we’re all criminals. We all violate something. There is no such thing as a truly law abiding citizen anymore. All in the quest for good looks, corporate causes, and the simple fact that the government wants all these laws.
Why would the government want all of these laws? Money. they get a peice of the pie. Also, if anyone pisses them off you can find enough little stuff to make their lives a living hell. Freedom checked out and left town years ago. I’d say turn of the 20th century. My grandparents get so angry with me and tell me to leave the country when i say anything about this great land. Sad part is, they don’t even realize how far gone the country they defend has gotten. It gets even better too, now we have these mysterious enemies called “terrorists” or “insurgents”. All they are, are people who think differently. They don’t stick to the easy to identify words like hijackers, arsonists, bombers and what not. They like vague terms. Alot of people could be labeled terrorists or insurgents. Big brother is here, he just isn’t as easy to spot as he was in 1984.
Sorry for the rant but it fealt pretty damn good.
March 26th, 2006 at 2:53 am
I believe that the proponent’s have a legitimate point. If there is enough digitizable material available to be able to model the person appearance, voice, body movements, mannerisms, diction, facial expressions, etc, it’s possible that a ‘virtual’ SAG member could be created inside of a PIXAR.
However, any law should be very carefully crafted to preserve the “fair use” aspects of using the distinctive attributes of a well-known person. Such things would include impressions (Rich Little), parodies and send-ups (Saturday Night Live), news gathering and reporting (OJ, Robert Blake), audio or visual documentaries where the interest is in the person and not trying to usurp demand for their skills and talents (Zsa Zsa Gabor.)
Furthermore, the benefits of such a law should cease at the person’s death and not be available to be used by their estate, heirs, or a commercial venture who purchased such rights as a bludgeon against those who might come forward with (truthful) revelations (withheld out of fear of reprisal) regarding the decedant’s past behavior, conduct, expressed opinions, writings, or other facts contradictory with the public perception of that person or their carefully crafted public image. Note that this does not imply that any copyright benefits accrued by their actual appearance (contrasted with a virtual digitized appearance) should be nullified after death. However the term should be something more reasonable like 5 to 10 years, not 70.
–TG
March 26th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Sounds like another bullish idea to lock down fair use even further. It’s really pathetic where this world is coming to now.. err i mean America. Can you say moving out of the country if i get a chance? Either that or changing the laws as much as possible.