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Voice Overs and AI Use without my permission

lmdaley

By lmdaley
in Music & Audio

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lmdaley Newbie

lmdaley

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Hello Fiverr Voice Over Community!

I have a quick question and would like your honest opinion.  I am worried about clients using my voice in AI without my permission. What is your opinion about including a rider that states the client cannot use my voice in AI or voice clone without my permission? I have attached the rider from NAVA that they suggest.   Any opinions would be welcome.  Thanks!

 

Lisa

lmdaley (Fiverr)

ARTIFICIAL-INTELLIGENCE-RIDER_Ver1.5_22023 (1).doc

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newsmike Grand Master

newsmike

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, lmdaley said:

Hello Fiverr Voice Over Community!

I have a quick question and would like your honest opinion.  I am worried about clients using my voice in AI without my permission. What is your opinion about including a rider that states the client cannot use my voice in AI or voice clone without my permission? I have attached the rider from NAVA that they suggest.   Any opinions would be welcome.  Thanks!

 

Lisa

lmdaley (Fiverr)

ARTIFICIAL-INTELLIGENCE-RIDER_Ver1.5_22023 (1).doc 27.5 kB · 0 downloads

The problem is that an agreement is only as good as the parties who sign it. In the legitimate Voice Over world, this would carry some more weight and enforceability (in the US only) since you are most likely dealing with known entities. Here in the anonymous world of Fiverr with no vetting of buyers and virtually none for sellers, you would likely find that it would be impossible to enforce even if you could prove that you were cheated on such a deal.

While there are many honest and professional buyers on Fiverr, those, by definition would not likely be the ones to use your voice in an unauthorized manner. It is Fiverr's army of not so honest buyers that you have to worry about, because they will happily sign such a document with the intention of violating it immediately. And even if you were to somehow discover unauthorized usage, can you imagine the costs involved in even pre trial discovery on an international copyright case?  That would be a huge expense not even considering that an actual lawsuit would be ridiculously expensive and nearly impossible to win. 

For example, you make $300 on a VO and then suspect that some guy in China stole your voice? How would you even start? Most US corporations cannot stop the knockoff trade even with the supposed cooperation of the Secret Service, but at least you can get a nice Rolex for $25 in Times Square. 

 

Edited by newsmike
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malik_mona Rookie

malik_mona

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Asalam u Alaikum 

I am also a voice over artist.... 

I think it's not a big deal but also it's true that they should get permission from the voice seller..... Bcz when a buyer get voice over artist than they should discuss with the seller where the buyer use seller's voice... Either for the purpose of AI or in commercial... Or some other illigal purpose... Because there is many frauds that happened in our world. 

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  • 2 months later...
melissaharlowvo Mentor

melissaharlowvo

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I added a few phrases in my order requirements to challenge this issue of people using my voice for other purposes or outside of the project they paid for. 

Although it would be difficult to enforce, I think it slows down and prevents someone who wants to steal my voice. I think it makes them nervous to agree to such statements. 
 

The first statement is:

You agree to not use or extend usage to any party of any recording or performance of Melissa Harlow VO, in order to train machine, learning, and

The second statement:

You also agree to not create any synthesized or digital double voice, or likeness of Melissa Harlow VO from this order.

The buyer cannot move forward to order without agreeing to these statements.

Also, thank you for NAVA and the industry work it’s doing on behalf of all voice artists. Some of the wording was taken from their contract rider. They give open permission to use any and all parts of the rider.  www.navavoices.org

 

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chelseavo Rookie

chelseavo

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Posted
10 minutes ago, melissaharlowvo said:

I added a few phrases in my order requirements to challenge this issue of people using my voice for other purposes or outside of the project they paid for. 

Although it would be difficult to enforce, I think it slows down and prevents someone who wants to steal my voice. I think it makes them nervous to agree to such statements. 
 

The first statement is:

You agree to not use or extend usage to any party of any recording or performance of Melissa Harlow VO, in order to train machine, learning, and

The second statement:

You also agree to not create any synthesized or digital double voice, or likeness of Melissa Harlow VO from this order.

The buyer cannot move forward to order without agreeing to these statements.

Also, thank you for NAVA and the industry work it’s doing on behalf of all voice artists. Some of the wording was taken from their contract rider. They give open permission to use any and all parts of the rider.  www.navavoices.org

 

Thanks for sharing this! I may add this to my requirements on my gigs just to be safe, it's at least something to make them pause!

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uk1000 Grand Master

uk1000

Posted
Posted (edited)
32 minutes ago, melissaharlowvo said:

You agree to not use or extend usage to any party of any recording or performance of Melissa Harlow VO, in order to train machine, learning, and

instead of "to train machine, learning, and..." maybe it could say something like "to train any machine-learning system and..."

Though if you make the things about training AI the only things in that section it might also give the buyer ideas (one who didn't think of it before). Maybe add some other things they aren't allowed to do in that section too.

Edited by uk1000
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bsmith0701 Contributor

bsmith0701

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, melissaharlowvo said:

I added a few phrases in my order requirements to challenge this issue of people using my voice for other purposes or outside of the project they paid for. 

Although it would be difficult to enforce, I think it slows down and prevents someone who wants to steal my voice. I think it makes them nervous to agree to such statements. 
 

The first statement is:

You agree to not use or extend usage to any party of any recording or performance of Melissa Harlow VO, in order to train machine, learning, and

The second statement:

You also agree to not create any synthesized or digital double voice, or likeness of Melissa Harlow VO from this order.

The buyer cannot move forward to order without agreeing to these statements.

Also, thank you for NAVA and the industry work it’s doing on behalf of all voice artists. Some of the wording was taken from their contract rider. They give open permission to use any and all parts of the rider.  www.navavoices.org

 

Thanks for providing insight into how you go about working around this issue, and for sharing the NAVA link. Obviously, this isn't bullet proof, but it at least provides some control over the situation.

 

Happy Holidays!

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  • 4 months later...
melissaharlowvo Mentor

melissaharlowvo

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Just a few more thoughts about this topic - voice cloning:

Theft of your voice is a perfect reason you should never send a free sample or “audition” here on Fiverr. If you are working with an agent then ok, but for the typical below industry standard rates, it’s not worth the effort or potential problems…even if the project seems legitimate. I actually explain that buyers need to, “put a certain amount of trust into my ability and working with me.”

It literally takes less than :20 seconds of your voice to create a pretty good quality fake. That’s what it is… fake, phony, stolen, unethical, synthetic. Some people are into fake and you can’t help them… you can just protect your own integrity. 

The laws in the US have not caught up with voice cloning, so for now, do not depend on any legal recourse unless you are independently wealthy and can afford the top attorneys who don’t have the law on their side anyway. Copyright law is not there either. 

I just passed on a “project” here on Fiverr that was stated as $5,000 USD for a 5,000 word project. In what world would even a top pro in our voice industry be paid $1 a word??? A completely unethical way to get my voice by saying they would love a “sample”  😂

Because I pay for Seller Plus, I can see a few things about this buyer and their average paid price to a seller was below $100 and they had 8 reviews. 

Look under the hood of the car! 

I had the VERY unpleasant experience of having my voice stolen on another platform. It was a good client so it was especially hurtful. They used my previous work to create a synthetic voice of me to create videos. Not only was the voice terrible, the pronunciation of certain words was totally off and you could hear bad timing… but hey, it included fake breaths! 

I made the client pay me for the unauthorized work and told them I would no longer be their voice. Done. 

I am able to at least create order requirements on Fiverr that may slow down the scammer but not if I’m giving it away… that’s on me. 

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