Technology

There's already a thing called "likeness rights" that actors have. Presumably the filmmakers in this case made a deal with whoever inherited those rights when James Dean died.

The article has a bit on this:

In general, when a celebrity dies, "rights to publicity" pass on from the celebrity to next of kin, or to the party granted these rights in a will. But Kahn says even a will, which will usually dictate who will benefit financially from the commercial use of the dead celebrity's image and likeness, holds limited legal weight since "it's not like a contract because it's a one-way document". The power for how that person's image is used passes to their living executor.

People need to realize that dead people do not have rights, only living people have rights. A dead person can't go to court.

Gunna get a Don't Reanimate sticker on my driver's license.

Robin Williams did that exact thing with Disney in his Aladdin contract

According to the articles, even putting something specific in your will won't actually prevent it under the current laws.

It's necromancy.

I don't see an issue if a living person wants to sign away their rights for this. But, if someone's already dead, and they were never asked, creating new material with their likeness should be off-limits.

A good use of the tech is to restore and enhance old films. That's exciting, this other thing is dildos.

After you're dead there's no way to get permission. It's up to whoever holds the rights to your likeness.

I'm in my 40s and I love James Dean. But I don't love a guy who looks and sounds like James Dean. I love the really talented actor James Dean who tackled his few roles in an incredibly charismatic and engaging way. I don't want to see an AI's interpretation of that.

That was my thought too, but according to Wikipedia, his estate still brings in $5M/year.

The movie industry is allergic to any new ideas unless it can be used to regurgitate old ideas that are safe money makers. They'd rather people watch dead actors or the same plot twisted around for the millionth time because of nostalgia instead of trying something new.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/8UKPMY1LnYU

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

The part that's interesting to me is for characters more than actors - but as someone else said - the AI also needs to emulate their style and such for it to be a compelling "performance". That said, I believe it'll be possible if there's enough pre-existing content to train on. GPT already can create written content "in the style of" well enough to be amazing to most average people.

What's interesting is how much these will be used followed. I'm thinking to many of the franchises - like Star Trek - where they've re-cast the characters, but current writing is so... let's say different.... that it still doesn't' really feel like the character. I'm not attached to Shatner - I don't watch shows because he's in them. I do like his portrayal of Kirk in the TV show and movies. But there's the current Actors (like when Chris Pine did his movies) don't like to "do an impression". Pine can and a good one - there's a SNL skit where he actually does a Shatner impression, and it was very on for the character IMO.

Are the current actors right? IDK - we don't usually get any sort of A/B testing for the wide public. That said - given the fan backlash on the newer franchise productions - there's a viewership who presumably would like a full recreation. Ahhh, but the other critique would be - it's not just the current actors, heck, many are excellent - it's the writing. I'd argue that's (like I said above) easier to do with current AI - if the producers and studios let an AI do an actual "in the style of" script.

What's my point? Hmmm, I'm actually interested in more affordable creation of new content in franchises that I liked, to the extent it actually fits with the existing content. I think we need to separate the characters from the actors - much like animated characters have been.

But it isn't bringing those people back. It's bringing approximations of them back. AI John Candy won't make the comedic decisions and acting choices of the real John Candy. What you love is their talent, not their physical appearance and voice.

There was also the commercial for prostate cancer research starring Bob Monkhouse, which was released in 2007, four years after his death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quxOMX1jl1w

At least in his case, the family granted permission to use his likeness because prostate cancer was his cause of death. An impressionist provided his voice for the commercial, not AI.