Audiobook Narrators Complain Apple May Have Used Them To Train AI Voices (appleinsider.com) 32
Customers of Spotify's audiobook narration firm say that they were not adequately informed of a contract clause that they agreed to, that ultimately allowed Apple to use their voices in its AI training. From a report: Apple quietly released a range of audio Apple Books in early January 2023, which were narrated by voices entirely generated by Artificial Intelligence. Publishers and professional voice actors objected that this was removing a major source of income, but Apple claimed it was still committed to artists.
Specifically, Apple said that the new AI audiobooks were only done for titles where it was not economic to hire an actor. So that would be low-circulation ones such as textbooks, small presses, and self-published titles. Now according to Wired, voiceover artists and authors working with a company called Findaway have complained about Apple using them to train their own AI replacements. Findaway is effectively a self-publishing audio company that is owned by Spotify, where authors pay to have audiobooks produced. As yet, it appears that no actors working for traditionally published titles -- where the audiobook is produced by the publisher without a charge to the author -- have complained.
Specifically, Apple said that the new AI audiobooks were only done for titles where it was not economic to hire an actor. So that would be low-circulation ones such as textbooks, small presses, and self-published titles. Now according to Wired, voiceover artists and authors working with a company called Findaway have complained about Apple using them to train their own AI replacements. Findaway is effectively a self-publishing audio company that is owned by Spotify, where authors pay to have audiobooks produced. As yet, it appears that no actors working for traditionally published titles -- where the audiobook is produced by the publisher without a charge to the author -- have complained.
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The author always gets their cut. Apple always gets their cut. The voice actors who didn't really think about the value of a large corpus of a low cost good reading voice corpus got fucked.
Caveat emptor. Providing third party services for the Apple ecosystem is like giving product demos to Microsoft in the old days. Could make you some money, could get you screwed. Expect a-moral behavior, don't believe the PR.
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Caveat emptor
The buyer should watch out? I think you mean: "Caveat venditor"
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"The author always gets their cut. "
Not during the narrator's training at home.
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Too bad. So sad. Sorry you're mad. (Score:4, Interesting)
You have no stipulation that your work can't be used to learn from. Fair use allows exceptions for education/learning to many regulations. People could learn from exposure to your work...and you can't stop that... you can only try to limit access to those who only want to learn and not just experience your work. Humans draw from influences and copy aspects and styles without that much limitation. Academics take the successful and talented then abstract those aspects to explain to any student who can then make spin offs which may 100% abstract conceptual copies but are not copies.
The AI is performing a form of learning to educate itself. NOT at all a copy. You can say it's compressing billions of images into only 4GB (the "brain") and if you play with it for a million generations you can train it to produce an approximate copy but that is zero proof of copying. It is impossible to actually copy and compress at the ratios being used.
These fights are desperation as careers get killed off.
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Your work is used to train an AI, you should get a cut.
Re:Too bad. So sad. Sorry you're mad. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, how about this one: read the god damn contract you are signing, and be aware of what the other party can do with the work product you provide.
Ignorance of the contract isn't valid in contract disputes. Read, or hire a contract lawyer previous to signing if you're worried about things like this. Besides, this writing should have been on the figurative wall the moment any of these guys first saw working and understandable text-to-speech like 10+ years ago.
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Not only that, learning from work of others is fundamental concept in how humans actually progressed from not having control over fire to where they are today.
This is one thing that fundamentally cannot be constrained without crippling any ability for humanity to not just progress, but even stay at current development levels.
The fact that just like plumbing made a lot of chambermaids jobless, washing machines freed women from nearly endless work at home, cars made a lot of stable masters jobless and excel m
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I doubt this would be considered "learning" as humans do. At most, it's more like a person teaching themselves to mimic a particular actor, with the intent to then sell their services imitating them. Hollywood made damn sure that didn't become a thing, with likeness rights and so forth.
A more relevant example would be actors who participated in movies that they later regretted. There was that one about Christ a few years ago, with some of the actors claiming they were tricked into participating. There was a
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There was that one about Christ a few years ago, with some of the actors claiming they were tricked into participating.
What movie was that?
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Contracts that do not address new things can not have you invent things after the fact. There is no law saying learning only happens for humans. Learning by definition applies to AI so you have to redefine that word in this context. AI is intelligent by definition until you change the meaning of the word. Is it the SAME has human intelligence? dog intelligence? no. it's different; is it the kind of intelligent that most of us think that word means? not. even. remotely. use other words or make new ones.
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Na, its more like that monkey who took a selfie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute
If an AI reads a book, the recording should not be protected by copyright. Works created by a non-humans are not copyrightable.
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A lot of this is going to become basically irrelevant soon. Once a book reading AI can run on your phone, there will be no need to distribute any more than the text. Audiobooks will become niche, with the only reason to buy one being the identity of the reader (e.g. the author, or someone famous).
For most people, AI reading the book will be the best option. It will do a better job of character voices, and have features like the ability to censor out swear words or skip over the racy bits. It will even be ab
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It will even be able to cut books down automatically, giving you the basic plot and key scenes, but skipping over the less important parts.
An audio version of CliffsNotes?
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It would allow different voices as well for different characters.
Contract clause they agreed to? (Score:3)
Hmmm. they can complain, for sure. But should it be tested, I don't know if they have a case.
...as the authors and actors say it was not explicitly pointed out to them when they signed updated agreements.
If it's not obfuscated, I don't know if there's a legal requirement to point it out.
"It feels like a violation to have our voices being used to train something for which the purpose is to take our place," Andy Garcia-Ruse, a narrator, told the publication.
You can't argue a feeling, so yes... that's probably true. It might be morally shady, depending who you ask. But this isn't a EULA, where the benefit is purely one-sided, and as such is dodgy in court. They're signing contracts by which they get paid. The last time I signed a contract where I got paid, I read it. All of it.
Not all agreements should be treated as click-through.
Re:Contract clause they agreed to? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if the never-ending stream of EULA clicks required to set up a new system or install new software has had an overall negative effect on people's perceptions of the importance of reading a contract? Had some really weird gotchyas coming up lately in the news here or there because somebody didn't fully read their contract up front. Granted, in tech circles, it's tough to know what's changing and if some new tech comes along, you may not even know what the contracts says even if you read it. So, it's possible that plays a part as well.
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People in basically every other industry train their replacements all the god damn time. Why is this any different?
They were presented with a contract, in which they would lend their voice to the reading of a book for recording and redistribution. They got paid for that, and anything else in the contract that they didn't object to and have Apple remove previous to signing. If they didn't read the contract, and the contract wasn't written in a purposefully obfuscated way (as you point out) then tough shit
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In the UK this kind of "fine print" that buries important clauses tends to be unenforceable in court. It's called the "red hand rule", because the judge who set the precedent wrote that a very important clause needed to be indicated by a red hand pointing to it on the page (as was the style at the time).
Is that not the case in the US? Generally speaking, here the longer the contract and the harder it is to understand, the harder it is to enforce even if it was agreed to.
Reminds me of (Score:4, Interesting)
The Return Of Chef [fandom.com] where they spliced the voice of Issac Hayes together from audio clips from their past episodes; killing the character off. The reason was Hayes was a Scientologist and wanted out of his contract because of another episode South Park had done making fun of Scientology.
cites: [cbr.com]
In late 2005, South Park’s 9th season aired the controversial episode "Trapped in the Closet," which lampoons, among other things, Scientology, which Hayes was a member. By March of the following year, Hayes wanted out of his contract, and a statement was released in his name saying, “There is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs begins." While the events were unfolding, South Park co-creator Matt Stone felt the departure was rooted in an artistic double standard. "In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons or Jews.”
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I've heard that as well, his death was tragic and preventable but it seems nobody was looking after him. There were people looking after his assets, and controlling his business decisions but nobody making sure he was physically safe.
How bad is the AI voice? (Score:1)
Can't say I've ever listened to a robo-narrated audiobook, but judging by the synthesized voices of Siri, Alexa, and TikTok, I don't think these actors have much to worry about. There's no way I'd want to listen to more than a few lines of dialogue spoken by current generation voice synthesis. IMHO, computer generated voice has improved to the point where it now firmly rests in an "uncanny valley" - there's just still something not quite human about the way they sound.
Re:How bad is the AI voice? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have, to lots. When I was looking for a narrator for my book, I auditioned 10 or so narrators whose voice I liked, but also, because of the cost, I looked into speech engines. Recognize that this was almost 3 years ago and all this AI stuff wasn't out, but I couldn't, under any circumstance, accept the speech synthesis outputs. There's so much to narration that requires pauses at the right moment, let alone excitement, dullness, sadness, and so on, to convey a good audiobook to the listener that none of the engines could match even to the worst narrators.
Fast forward to 2023 and AI, and I can see good quality being produced between the AI's awareness of context and the quality of the speech engines. I paid about $1300 for a 508 book narration, which was on the low side. The question is how much would have that cost me for an AI version. If it's as low as $200-$300, I may give that a shot, too, because, at the end, I wasn't completely happy with my narrator's accent.
Misinformation about Findaway/Apple AI (Score:1)