Award-winning voice actors Cissy Jones and Larissa Gallagher have seen their voices stolen by AI. Literally. In this hard-hitting episode of The Pro Audio Suite, they join us to share the shocking reality of finding their voices on AI platforms — being sold, shared, and synthesized without consent or compensation.
But they’re not just here to sound the alarm — they’re here with solutions.
We dive into:
-
How they discovered their voices were being used
-
The legal and ethical grey areas of AI voice cloning
-
Their fight for control through advocacy with NAVA (National Association of Voice Actors)
-
The groundbreaking tech tools being developed to protect voice actors
-
What YOU can do to secure your voice and future
Whether you're a voice actor, producer, or just someone who cares about consent in the age of AI, this is a must-listen.
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“When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.”
Hunter S Thompson
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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(00:21):
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And welcome to another proaudio suite
thanks to Austrian audiomaking passion herd. And.
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(00:46):
AI is a hot topic,and we have a couple of guests
to talk about trying to beat AIor at least control it a little.
We have the Russell, Gallaher and CC.
You. Thanks for having us.
Thanks for having us.Oh, you've been had.
If you believe you're really on thepodcast, thousands of admiring fans.
(01:07):
Womp womp.
Who wants to fire off first?
How are you going to savethe voiceover industry from AI?
We are.
Thank you so much for asking.
We are, you know.
So here's the here's the thing.
Larissa and I have both been voiceactors for many, many years.
I've been a voice actressfor, 17, 18 years.
(01:29):
I've worked in all the mediumsthat there are here.
And when I started finding my voice
on multiple websiteswithout my consent,
and when I reached outto the companies that were,
offering access to my voice for moneywithout paying me anything.
And I said to them, hey, that's me.
You don't have my permission to have
my replica in the first place,and you're not paying me for it.
(01:50):
Please remove it.They said no, really?
They said you don't own your voice.
And, they were right.
So this approach has been multi-foldnumber one.
I sit on the board of the NationalAssociation of Voice Actors.
Anybody in the voiceover industry,I would hope, is familiar with Nava
and the work that they've been doing.
They also spawned Avain Australia and Canada and,
(02:13):
multiple other,advocacy groups around the globe.
We've been working with legislatorsto get meaningful laws
passed around the protectionof our voices.
Adding the definition of voiceto biometric data
and copyrightable data,which is currently not a thing.
So in additionto doing the legislative path
and reallyworking to get laws passed,
(02:35):
you know, Larissa and I and
our co-founder Julian started talkingand saying, you know,
even if we get these laws passed,there is nobody that is going to care
more about a voice actorsvoice than voice actors.
Why are we not startingour own company?
Why are we not trying to beat themat their own game?
Why are we not planting a stakein the ground and saying, great,
we understand this technology ishere.
(02:56):
It's not moving backwards.It's only getting better.
This is how we expect to be treatedas human beings and as professionals.
And I think there's a a dignityto that that other companies
just aren't offeringbecause they are scraping every.
So so I just want to peela few things back.
Just the first thing you said,which is you don't actually
have rights to your own voice.
(03:19):
Can you elaborate on currently?
Yeah. Yeah. So we've never had to.
So if you look at biometric dataand, rights of publicity,
it always refers to name,image, likeness.
So for example, a celebrity can saythat's my picture on a billboard.
You don't have my permissionto use my picture on a billboard.
That is an infringementof my rights of publicity.
(03:40):
And you have to take it down.
Great voice was never
they never needed to add itto any of those definitions,
because we never had technologythat could believably copy it until,
several years ago.
Well, they didn't pass any lawsabout this, but several years ago,
I believe it was a Toyota dealership.
Hiredsomeone to sound like Bette Midler
(04:00):
because they went to Bette Midlerand said,
hey, we really want you to do our ad.
And she said, no, go pound rocks.
And so they hired a soundalike to come do it and pass it off
as Bette Midler.
She was able to sue and get ittaken down because she's a celebrity.
Right.
So she is able to get some,
you know, rights of publicity
associated to her voicebecause she is a well known quantity.
(04:23):
The rest of us are not.
So right nowyou're having a spate of,
you know, people getting fakekidnaping
phone calls from, like, a loved onewho's been kidnaped and sent $10,000
to this Nigerian princeto get your, kid back or whatever.
And they're very believableand they're very convincing,
and they're not illegal yetbecause there are no laws.
(04:43):
So comment on this one.
I can't name names,but a friend of mine is the voice
of a international realityshow, doing it for years.
It's a good gig.
And over the years,they've, beat them up.
We can't now payyou residuals for international play.
We're going to pay you a flat ratefor this.
We're going to lower your contractfor that.
(05:05):
Every year they sign it againbecause they need the gig.
And then one year they say we'reonly going to hire you for pickups.
And, and and they're like for what?
They're like, well the pickupswe can't get the eye to do correctly.
And then they say, well,I didn't give you permission.
And then they pull outwhatever contract they signed
and said, well,
you gave us the rights to owneverything and therefore we own it.
(05:29):
We can pump it into the theft machine
and you have no right to say thatwe don't and kick rocks.
And then they said, well, I guessthat's the end of our relationship.
I'm never going to do a pickupwith you.
So good luck using the I.
And you have what you have, I guess.
And it just destroyed the wholeor possibly I don't know, it's
just an awful situation and it seems,you know, obviously all driven
(05:52):
by how far low can we drivethe budgets and drive profit.
And it didn't need to happen.
Laws are currently being craftedto combat exactly that
because we as voice actors,you all know, have to typically
sign contracts, especially for gamesand especially for, you know,
this type of jobthat says in perpetuity
throughout the known universeand any technology
(06:13):
currently existingor to be developed.
Well, I'm sorry, that cannothold up in a court of law.
And there are laws being craftedright now that specify exactly
that any contractthat was signed with that language
cannot possiblybe held up in a court of law, because
that's ridiculous and egregious.
So there is legislation coming,
but the government takes its sweettime to get it done.
(06:37):
Yeah.
If I can interject, that wasthat was kind of part of that.
Everyone, is partof the other reason that,
you know, kindof we wanted to set this standard
because the current companies outthere that are providing
AI and providing these solutionsfor everyone,
a kind of throwing their handsup in the air and going.
But it's impossible.
We can't do this.
(06:58):
It's and it's not true.
It's very difficultbecause they built they did the old
Silicon Valley, you know,
for free, break things,break out forgiveness later.
And so we were like, well, look, partof this is about setting a standard
and proving that it can be done,proving that it's not impossible,
(07:18):
and that we're going to tryand do it.
Part of our going to Sag-Aftrawas about saying, we want to create
a training foundational modelthat isn't scraped.
Is it going to cost money? Yes.
Is it going to be difficult? Yes.
But if we can prove it can be doneand people are trying to do it,
it just makes it a little bit harderfor the bad actors to go.
(07:40):
But no, you can't, can't, can'tI don't know.
So that's, that's kind of the,the whole journey is as long as
there are people
who are doing the bad thingsand there's
no one proving that you can do itotherwise,
then why wouldn't they keep doing it?
So we're we're we're on the journeyto kind of prove that it can be done.
And we're making huge headwaywith the companies coming to us
(08:02):
going, please, this is all we wantbecause these guys are great
and they're amazing.
But the ethical authenticatedcontract
did past lineback to the beginning doesn't exist.
And that's what we want.
And that's whatwe're kind of came about to show.
We can do thatand we're going to make it happen.
If I may also real quicklybecause we come from this industry,
(08:24):
we're not some tech bros coming inand being like, yeah,
but I got this tech and it's super,bro dude.
Right?
We're actually
coming in saying, listen,we understand the existing ecosystem.
Ecosystem.We understand the infrastructure.
We understand the agency landscape.
This is the thing that we wantto include in this conversation.
We're not trying to bea casting place.
We're not trying to be a marketplace.
(08:45):
We want to make this a thingthat works for this industry, right?
With a technologythat is getting insanely good.
And if we don't step up and say,cool, cool, cool, that's great.
But I'm a human being andthis is how you work with my replica.
This is my agent.
She'll negotiate my contract right?
We have to put our foot downto say how we expect
(09:06):
to be treatedin this situation. Right?
I mean, there's
just no difference to mebetween then then musicians getting,
you know, as soon as you replicatemore than 2 or 3 notes in a melody.
Tenant.
No no no no no no no no nono no no no no.
Anybody rememberthat. Ice. Ice maybe.
Oh sorry.
It's melody.
It's it's rhythm
(09:27):
I mean whatwhat makes Christopher Walken
Christopher Walkenis his delivery right.
So you can't just,you know, this translates directly
to what voices are and voicesand likeness are to my in my opinion.
But of course, these are priorart things
that you have to call againstand say, yo, yeah,
I think the problem isthat the companies that did
this went racing to an obvious fact,and then they're like,
(09:49):
well,you didn't to find theft before.
And it's like you knew absolutelywhat it was before you started.
And just because you have like,
and the best parallel is,is your image likeness.
If this whole paradigm existswith your image,
how can it not exist with you?
Well, and for Scarlett Johansson
to get the traction she didwhen OpenAI released her.
Right.
(10:10):
That's basically saying
even if it was not ScarlettJohansson at the end,
if it was a different workflow,
she clearly hired herto sound like Scarlett
and then released it with a tweet
that said her, hi, here'smy right of publicity.
You cannot make money off of my name.
But but everyone deserves
some some level of right,of publicity, of their own voice.
(10:32):
And and the other thing I think,who is it like?
Siri, not Siri? TikTok.
When one voice actress Bev standing.Yeah.
Oh, she settled out of court.
I think she settled sono one knows what the settlement was.
And I think that was abit of possibly a disservice,
to, to not
really rake them over the coalsin public and.
(10:54):
Sure,but she's a one person voice actress
going up against a multi
and national conglomeratewith billions of dollars.
And she was.
But if she had gone into open court,
they would have dragged it outfor years.
I mean, listen,
we've had a lot of conversationsabout like court cases, right?
And oftentimes in a court case,it doesn't matter if you're right, it
matters if you have the moneyto withstand the other guy.
(11:15):
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.
And he's something I was going to askyou. Right.
Because, you know, with whatyou're suggesting, how does it work?
Like it's okay for voice actorsand all that sort of stuff.
It's going to be clear. Right.
But say, you know, little Freddywho has a podcast with his mate,
they record in their bedroom.
If someonedecided that they liked his voice
(11:36):
and they were going to clone him,how does he look after himself?
Because little Freddycan't even afford a court case.
Let me tell you, you can't.
Even voice actors can't do thisbecause I have clients that I know
have loaded sub mixes into whathave you.
I machine to get a scratch track out,and there's no concept that,
(11:58):
oh, I've loaded this until just likethe open end of it, that takes it.
And the closest example I haveis like the fly
where like you go into the podand the fly flew in the pod
two and now your voice comes out
with like a flysticking out the side of it.
And, and you're in it,you're in it, you're not in it.
It's arguable that it's all you.
It's half you because your datahas been put into this
(12:19):
giant mill without youhaving any input about that.
And the fact that anybodycan put anybody's voice into it
is a problem in and of itself.
Agreed.
There's only one way I can saythat you could have ever control this
properly, control the input,
and I can't see it actually happeninganyway.
Is that there?
If there was some wayand we talked about this
(12:40):
with Tim Friedman,was that correct for you?
Friedlander.
Friedlander. Friedlander.
Sorry, who's the president of Nava,by the way?
And just an all aroundamazing person.
And just thinking of a musician,I am.
I'm thinking of the wetlands. Yeah.
So, ifyou could actually get some kind of,
like, a fingerprint of your voicethat did it.
(13:00):
We have actually partneredwith a group
that has createdone of the most robust
watermarking, tracing, trackingtechnologies that we've seen.
And we've evaluated a lot.
But we found this company out of,
a group of graduate studentsout of USC that have created this
really incredible watermarkingtechnology that is, lossless.
(13:21):
It's it's, it's a visual token on
an audio or visual,you know, video, thing.
It's label. So you can have it.
If I record from home,I can put a token on it from home.
And then you send itto the production studio,
they can watermark itthere. It's got a different token.
Go to your distributionpartners. It's got a different token.
So you can see where any leaksmay happen.
And also
(13:42):
if it does end up on a non authorizednon sanctioned like YouTube page
number one it will call home.And so they
we can see when it's beingunauthorized and used elsewhere.
But the metadatathat's included in the watermark
will pointanybody who clicks on that original
or that YouTube link,that unauthorized YouTube link
will point themback to the original data owner.
(14:03):
So it actually generatesmore sales for people.
If it's put up on a, onan unauthorized YouTube page,
which is super, super cool,
and it's also looking at datapoisoning technology that can,
basically function like nightshadefor, visual art, where
if you havethis technology on your visual art
and somebody tries to upload itthrough glaze or whatever,
(14:23):
it will corrupt the fileand give you a useless piece of art.
And so we've been talkingwith other companies
that are creating a datapoisoning software
that will do the same thingto your voice going through 11.
So if they try to upload your voice
through 11,it will garble it and make it. Wow.
Yeah.
1111 is the biggest interesting hereisn't it?
Like, well, I mean there'sa lot of different companies.
11 is the 800 pound gorilla for sure,because they have the most money
(14:45):
and they have, youknow, venture capital backing.
And they've been around, you know,to be fair, they're not illegal.
They're not doing anythingillegally yet.
So yeah, it's. Yeah.
And for the uninitiated like me, 1111labs is a voice, voice AI platform.
Okay.
It's probably the most prolificat this point.
And they charge ten bucks a monthand you can have access
(15:06):
to thousands of voicesin their marketplace.
That's them calling.
They're threatening a lawsuitbecause we're talking about them.
Sorry. And they are extraordinary.
I do like they, theythey have really, you know,
gotten some great technologyand they, they have offered a service
to people who needed it at the time.
What we're trying to do is say, hey,there's a whole lot of people who,
(15:26):
you know, who want to use somethingdifferent because,
privacy is mandatoryor they just feel uncomfortable
being in this kind of generalmarketplace environment.
They want a more B2B environmentor the training data.
They want to be secured.
And, Andrew Petersgave me the finger in the best way.
Oh, Andrew.
Yeah, I do, I just, you know,I decided just to for Robert
(15:48):
because you do know 11 labs.
Robert I well I know themas soon as you said 11 labs.
But I was sitting here going,what the fuck's 11.
Yeah.
Because of the whole scandalin Australia at the moment
is there's a radio station using it.
I just it has nothing to do withSpinal Tap 11.
Yeah. That scandal is outrageous,by the way.
But exactly.
That's the point
is that we're all about, you know,we don't want to be the marketplace.
(16:08):
We don't want to be.Come and find voices.
And you can make these voicessay whatever they want.
The actorsthat that have already signed with us
to be digital replicas or any company
that comes to us who sayswe want to work with these people or,
you know, find us some people,whatever our our whole point
is to try and help with onboardingthrough agents and actors.
(16:29):
But every actor,
whilst they may not be ableto approve the script due to privacy
or whatever secrecy IP protection,
they will be ableto approve the general content.
So it will be the actor saying yayor nay
rather than the tech platform goingahead and saying we're fine with it.
Because again, we're all aboutwe want it to be about AI
(16:52):
complementing.
Yes, the human voice actors work,not about replacing it,
so we don't want to offer itto everyone
because we want to make surethat the companies we work with
are companies that are lookingto complement the actors experience,
as opposed to just do a quick, dirtyfix and rock the AI in.
And thanks very much.
Give me ten bucks and go, can I canI ask you a quick question?
If you if youwe look forward from here,
(17:13):
let's look forward say another fiveyears even right by go back
25 years.
Right. Pretty much.
And my we're all working at macaroni.
Yeah. We're all what? Mac OS?I wasn't born then. Sorry.
My my best mates.
Old man was the chairmanof the board of a company
that was one of the first developersin voice recognition.
(17:35):
Right.
He was the chairman of a companyin the UK that basically pioneered
that stuff. Awesome.
And I remember being on a car ridewith Roy, who was my mates dad,
and we were talking about voiceoverand all these stuff, and he said,
we were talking abouthow voiceover works.
And he said, there will come a daywhere a voiceover artist
won't be selling them,going into a studio
(17:56):
to do a session,they will be selling.
And back in those dayshe said CD right, but they will be
selling a file of their voiceto someone to use for the purpose.
That's been described.
Very Nostradamus of his. Fascinating.
So that's how long this stuff's beenin the pipeline, is my point, right?
That means the CIA has had it.
For how long?
(18:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's my point though.
They were talking about theselike at the time they would the time
they were developing new stuffthey're actually talking about.
Okay, how do we do this.
Well, and I would say even more starkis this when I first
really started paying attentionto this in 2020, it took about
7 to 10
hours of solid recording to geta really good replica of a person.
(18:38):
And you can do it one shot.
And then in the beginning of,
I was going to say at the beginningof 2022, took about six hours,
2024 took maybe an hour.
And today you can literally dowhat's called a zero shot for 3 to 5.
I'll say somethingabout the zero shot.
I think the zero shotrelies on insane
amounts of previously collecteddata on everybody else's voice
(19:00):
from beforeto understand the entire process.
And so all of that is still basedon theft
of everybody, because they've goneand sampled the whole world.
It's the same way that
GTP could never have learnedand figured out everything
without having the whole internetto suck up.
And, they've collected so many voicesnow that they can do a one shot.
(19:25):
You know that that is basedon having insane amounts of data,
essentially theand that goes back to what we're,
you know,I mean, all voice platforms.
I mean, you know,you can't build a house on, a swamp
unless you kind of bring
in the materials to support it,but you have to live in another house
until you can build the proper,strong foundation.
(19:49):
So I think, you know, the, the,the craziness of zero shot
is incredibly valuable to audio,audio production houses, etc..
So along the way of of getting there,if we can create the foundation
that it's not stolen voices,but it's voices
that who have signed a contract,who get a licensing fee
when that foundational modelis, is sold and licensed,
(20:12):
then those actors have contributedand are getting paid.
And it's not scraped,it's not stolen, it's not theft.
But until we build it,we have to live next door.
Years and years ago,I went to a meeting with the AA,
which is the Australian Unionfor actors,
and they were talking about,
kind of the way residuals work,which we don't have here necessarily.
(20:34):
We have rolloversand stuff like that,
but it was all about like basicallythe amount of times an ad gets
played, you get paid for it.
And I said to them,well, we have a system here already
with the music industry,which is APRA,
wherebecause everything was computerized
and radio,every time a song gets played,
it actually goes into a database
and people know
what songs being played andthey get their cut of their royalty.
(20:57):
I said, why don't you do a numberwith the same system
which has all the all the informationin the key number,
including the talent.
So every time it gets played,you get money.
Like if you do a deal where you go,okay, for three months only
they could play that 10,000 times inthree months, or you do a 12 months.
It could get played 500 times.
So the whole thingabout the duration of the usage of
(21:21):
that ad is irrelevant.
When you look athow many times it gets played.
But talking of that system,that's the kind of idea we need
for our voices.
So we have a key numberin everything that goes out with us.
Our informationinside that key number,
which is basically what you weretalking about before. But
I thought I try
and yeah, I by the way, I gotI got Pooh poohed about that.
(21:43):
We have the MPAA. Yes.
Is Navathe MPAA is the voiceover industry?
No. Nava is an advocacy group.
So Nava is not a union.
Nava is not trying to track residuals
or any of that stuff because that'sa whole other set work.
But, but I mean, what's going to bethe equivalent of the MPAA
and the RIAA for voiceover?
(22:05):
Someone'sgoing to have to step up and do it.
I mean, we are trying to get towho who's
who's motivated, who's motivatedto do, who has the time and the money
and who wants to paint a targeton their boards.
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
I mean,
I mean, how much how much ofthis is SAG and they after
it is like sitting backand being reactionary instead of,
on top of it actually.
(22:26):
Yeah,there's a lot of really good things.
And I think SAG know, listen,and I, I think SAG
could improve on a lot of things.
And I think voice overis one of those things. Right.
We are often very overlooked.
In the greater sphere of things,which is incredibly frustrating.
But, you know,
thanks to SAG, I have a pensionand I have health care.
(22:47):
Right.
So is it perfect? No,it is certainly not.
But are we better than we would bewithout it?
Yes, I believe so. Yeah.
I think it'sjust the size of the contracts.
Like a record label can is raking inginormous sums of money.
Film industryis raking in some sums of money, but
voice actors can be or not.
Yeah. Sorry. Game companies.
(23:09):
But the
actors themselves don't have that.
I don't know.
That's what's interesting.
Like recording artists have these,
have these copyright thingsand all this stuff that protects
them, mechanical licensesand all these things for voice
actors just never have had that.
But also, like, a recording artistdoesn't actually make money
until they go on tour, right? Well,now they don't.
They used to. That's true now. Yeah.
(23:30):
That's used to make a lot of moneybefore. Yeah.
We also used to make a lot of moneyon a nationwide union commercial.
Right, right.
And those have gone the way the dodo.
So like,
is there room for improvementall around?
Yes, absolutely.
Which is again,why we have to figure out
how to put a stake in the groundand say this, not that this.
And I
and I think,
(23:51):
I think one of the things to realize
is that there's always going to bethe Wild West.
There's going to be technologycompanies from whatever country
that are going to be like,
we don't care about the rules andand go sign up and go clone a voice.
But as long as the sort of
whatever, like rules based likeif you want to be a legit company
in the US, in Europe, etc.,selling product, making product,
(24:14):
having a decent name,
then you're going to playby these rules
and you're not going to steal voices.
And then if you want to have likesome small time YouTube channel, that
or even YouTube shouldn'tallow any of it to be trafficked
within it. But,
you know, you can't putall the toothpaste back in the tube,
but I feel like you can get peopleto voluntarily
take their little bit of toothpasteand put it back in the tube
(24:36):
until there'sa significant amount of it. I've.
I've tried that, Robert,and I've actually managed
to get most of the toothpasteback in the tube
to squeeze all the air outand then suck it back in.
Yeah, yeah. Did you didyou use it first?
Did you brush your teethand then somehow like,
wow, absolutely.
Wastenot want not recycling, man. Come on.
Well it'sclearly going to be a carrot and or
(24:56):
and a stick kind of approachto this thing change.
It's going to be some of both.
I don't knowif anybody in the voiceover world
has a big enough stick.
But you know, there'sa lot of carrots out there.
I think one of the other thingsthat it's not just the actors,
it is everything that revolves aroundthe actors.
There's entire scopes of layersof industry and peeling the onion.
(25:21):
And this is what I do.
I have a terrible voice,but I edit a lot of voice.
You know, like there's a
whole bunch of jobs that thisit affects directly in a big way.
I kind of feel like the way forwardhere is to, to sort of
not just focus on voice voice actors,because as I was kind of trying
to allude to before, I mean, JockoWillock's willingness, right?
(25:42):
One of the hottest podcastsin the world.
How much money could a company
make by eyeing his voice and using itwherever?
If he's got no right over it
and all that sort of stuff,the guy's got millions of followers.
Yeah, well, I'm probably giving awaygiving away the sacred C, right?
But I mean,and this is kind of where I wonder
whether rather than, than voicetrying to do their own thing,
(26:03):
whether everybody who's got a stakehere should come together.
I know there's no podcast as a unionand that's not a clear way forward,
but surely if you got there would bea great way to get critical mass?
Absolutely.
You know, if everyone is callingtheir their congressmen saying, hey,
I don't want my grandmothercalling me or me or who I don't know
who, calling my grandmotherand telling you that I've been.
That's one of the reasonswhy with our technology, we
(26:25):
we absolutely must have watermarking
right wi and trace tracing, trackingand hopefully soon poison pill.
But that's exactly the reason isbecause there's too much at stake
for too many people.
Right.
Yeah.
For Tracy in the audiencecan you explain to her
what poison polling is.
Yeah. So, hi, Tracy.
(26:46):
Hi, Tracy. Let's tell you something.
I thought you said for tracing.
Should I tell you,poison pill is basically to,
put some codein our watermark technology
that would corrupt a file offif someone tries to upload it
to an AI voice platform and generatea new voice with our audio.
Right.
So if we could put in a watermarkfrom home that says, this is mine,
(27:08):
I own it, this is where it's going,please don't post it online.
If it shows up on YouTube, we,
you know, itpops up on our tracing tracking site.
And then if somebody triesto take that audio
and upload it to 11without your consent,
it would corrupt the fileand spit out an unusable audio.
Thank you.
So just just curious.
But you pass that through an analogpass and poison pill is gone.
(27:32):
Supposedly it stays.
I mean, that
that is one of the thingsthat we have been working on
a lotis making sure the watermark stays.
Now, the poison pillcould be different.
That's a separate technologyand one that's going to be
a bit more in-depth,but the watermark stays.
This is like you're saying, becauseyou're thinking of it like Hdcp.
Robert.
Yeah, I mean,
I mean, any of those things like relyon somewhat of a faithful transfer.
(27:56):
So there's always a way to transferit unfaithfully enough
but good enough to strip itof whatever protection
that's been going onsince the days of scams.
The cat tapes in the CDs,
you know,
the logical way of stripping it,
the logical wayof doing it is the run that
we should be giving this away.
But I would imagineyou run it through analog to.
(28:17):
That's that's what I just said.
You know,
you just do a tape to an analogdevice and you probably will strip.
Yeah, but a whole bunch
if we have to, we have to havesome element of relying
on the goodwill of peoplebecause not everyone's an enemy
not allowed to kill people,but people still kill people.
So that's one of the things
if you want to find a way to be to doit, you can, sorry, roll back
(28:37):
even banks, a fortressthat was going to give made my point.
I mean, you know, there'syou can only do so much, right?
But at least you're doing something.Yeah.
And we've got it to the pointwhere the mastering it'll, it'll
it lasts through,
a ton of mastering, kind
of, you know, reverb, compression,ripping it apart.
It's like got very, very shortgaps through.
(28:58):
So you could really literally
just take two seconds of it,drop it into something else,
master it, put music on it,pull it somewhere else,
and it'll follow itall the way around.
So it's been there any sort of,
anything that I have to doas an engineer to make that happen?
Or does that happenthe moment you put that on?
Well, actually. Okay, how about this?
How about you come in to the studioand I'm recording you?
(29:21):
What isis there a legal obligation on me
to put that watermark on there,or how does that work?
It's it's like a thingthat she puts on her tooth.
And then when she speaks,it all comes out in code.
It's just,
I'm sorry, James Bond,but but it makes a little bit
of everything that's the problem.
It's it's it's like having a dogin the back of your throat.
Yeah. No, I'm just interested in.
(29:42):
How does that end where currentlythere's no law, right.
Currently it's a it's a handshake.
No, but how do you see it though.How do you how do we say.
Well, I would just say it.
Listen, I would love
to have it in the hands of everybodyso that I'm recording from home.
I watermark all of my stuff.That leaves here.
You know,you get it at your production studio,
you send a different watermark
on a different layerand send it off to whomever. Right?
(30:03):
I would love to see that.
And I would love for that to be,you know,
kind of the quoteunquote gentleman's handshake
of the industry of like,hey, you like to work?
I like to work. Oh my God,do you like money? I like money.
Let's do this togetherand make sure that we don't,
you know, kill our industry.
For ease of uploading your voiceto 11.
Right.
The other day,I saw my first ad on Facebook saying,
(30:25):
take the stress out of mixing.
And it was, you know,I do your mixing for you.
So, you know, it's like,take yourself out of a job.
I was at Blackmagic booth at NAB,you just bring in your,
DaVinci resolve project, you bringthe audio into into Fairlight
and you say Fairlight.
Just mix it, please.
In about three minutes later,the video is mixed well,
(30:49):
so obviously they don't wantany audio engineers as their clients.
Black magic is video.
I mean,I mean, no one's using Fairlight
to mix their audio anyways,so I guess that goes to video
people are using.
The whole point is the videopeople will not need to use as many
audio books.
Yeah, I guess that's like yeah,yeah, yeah.
But what what we're finding though
is, is exactly that,that people are coming to us
(31:12):
because we don't like, I thinkat heart, the majority of people,
or at least the majority,everyone that's coming to us
is because they don'twant to just give into the system.
And yes, these technologiesare amazing at the moment
because they have all this moneyand investor money behind it,
but they're coming to usbecause we're offering them
something thatthese other companies don't.
(31:33):
And I think the more, you know,not that I'm inviting competition,
but the whole point ismake this better for the industry,
protect voice actors, protectaudio engineers, protect the,
you know, agents.
And I mean, we when we started,we were even kind of going,
oh, we should come up with like thecontracts for the actors and decide
how much money are you goingto get paid for your AI thing?
(31:54):
And we were like, whoa, whoa, whoa,hang on a second.
There are agents that already do thatthat are superb at doing it.
And then talking to our agent,she was like, hey, you know,
and we all kind of said, well,what about if it's like,
you know, in a year's timeor even now, really, to be fair,
but as the agents, they look after
the human being Larisa actorthat goes out and does whatever or
(32:17):
and sorrythe digital replica Larissa actor
and then you can put the two togetherfor certain jobs.
So if Larissais doing a Toyota campaign
because I'm amazing is you know that,then she can
she can say that to, you know,the Toyota production house.
Well, you know, would you like herto do your internal messaging
(32:37):
so you keep a brand consistent voiceso you have a human being,
voice working
and you have the complimentarydigital replica
or, you know, a systemthat keeps the industry
the same industry where peoplecan still keep their jobs
and still be creative beings,but it gives a lift
and a support to an areathat is in some places.
(32:59):
I mean, it can do it better, faster,
but is as long as it'salso also doing it authentically.
That's what we care aboutas long as people are getting paid
when it happensfrom everyone down the chain.
Then that I think that's that'swhat we're striving for.
I was going to say howhow are the agents?
Amazing, amazing.
It's been amazing because it reallyis, you know, our job, the way we see
(33:24):
this is our job is to augmenttheir ability to make money.
Right.
So I see a future where agentshave an animation department,
a commercial department,a trailer department
and a digital replicadepartment. Right.
So we make, audio demos of the talentthat record with us and send it to
their agent so their agent can use itas a marketing tool.
(33:47):
And they've been amazing.
We've spokenwith every agency in town,
and several agenciesaround the globe.
And again,the fact that we're actually coming
to them as people in the industrynot going like, yeah,
we made some tech, bro, like,we actually want to work with you.
Let'swe are going to protect your actors.
We are not going to add
their information to training dataunless they have a separate contract
(34:08):
that says, yes,I would like to be added to your
training datafor an additional fee. Right.
We'renot opening this up as a marketplace.
The people that contract with us
have very specific accessto very specific models.
It's not just a free for all.
So agents feel comfortable with usbecause we actually give a damn,
you know,the biggest winner out of this?
If this if this fliesthe way you want it to fly,
(34:30):
the biggest winneris going to be the agents.
Because without this, they're gone.
Yeah, yeah.
Can cancan I come back to to one question
I started asking before,but we never got to the end of this.
Before you go,if we get to this nirvana where,
all the boxes it takesin, everybody's aligned and voice
actors are selling their samplesto go off
(34:51):
and have commercialsmade out of them and stuff.
What does that do tothe craft of voice acting in general?
Listen, I don't think main charactersare going to be replaced
anytime soon, right?
I think therewill always be a place for,
you know, the Courtney
Taylors and the, you know, Nolan
North's to come in and bring lifeto a character beautifully.
(35:14):
I think there is goingto be some hardship
in different parts of the industry,and it's hard to see it coming
and know that there's very littleany of us can do to stop it.
That scares me. A lot.
And entry level jobsI'm worried about. Right.
So again, like ourour whole vision has been to
not replace people but to give themadditional sources of income.
(35:35):
So we've actually turned awaya ton of companies
that just want to come in and startreplacing people willy nilly.
And we really want to make sure thatthat is not the path that we take.
There are otherswho don't care. Right.
And they will take those jobs.
OtherAI platforms will take those jobs.
And that's very difficultto know that it's coming.
I think the industry will shrink.
(35:55):
I think the people who are ableto make a living doing this
will become a smaller circle.
I thinkit's going to be a really tough
couple of years until the pendulumkind of shifts back.
I liken it to this around 2000,
if you'll recall, 3D generation 3D
graphics came out and suddenlyeverything looked like Shrek, right?
(36:16):
It was like this big, bulbous herdick.
Negative alreadywalking around, right.
And everything looked like that.
And it was ugly, right.
And it was really kitschyfor a minute. It was kind of neat.
And then it was like,oh God, this all looks the same.
And people started complaining,right?
Like, oh,it's already that way with AI voices.
And I think the only thingthat's even better
is if I starts feeding on itself
and startsgetting worse and worse and worse.
(36:37):
So now we have more 2D animation,main characters, and 3D animation
background, right?
I can see the same thing happening
with AI,because a lot of the companies
that we've spoken to have been like,look, man,
I don't know, my boss just told meI got to implement.
I don't know how,I don't know why, but I got to do it.
Even if it's more expensivethan hiring a human.
I got to fit AI in here somehow.
(36:58):
So there's this massivependulum swing
because it's the buzzwordand everybody's
hair is on fire to get AI goingand make it the thing.
And there's a backlash.
Games right noware very cautious about using AI.
Any of the major gamestudios are like,
I'm not going to shipanything with AI.
I don't want to upset my fans.
Great. That's great for actors.
(37:18):
And so I think there is a placethat that it will work.
And there is a placethat it will even help.
Can I add two things?
Yeah.
One is like what we are hearing a lotis that all of you, all who,
audio productionpeople are all creatives as well.
And creativeswant to work with creatives.
So the kind of thatthat synergy together will always say
(37:40):
that's what all other game companiesare doing as it's like, you know,
we may use it for scratch or for R&Dand to speed up the process.
Or maybe in commercials,we might do it
so that we can get a feel and hearhow the commercial sounds.
But we want to go to the actor
for the real thing,because we understand that,
that that kind of magic
that comes out of a human being,the soul that comes out of
(38:02):
the human being.
What is it I doesn't havetrauma is kind of the catch phrase
is that that'swhere the magic happens.
And that there have been studiesspecifically, SiriusXM
did an extraordinary studywhere they were playing like,
polling a whole lot of people,
playing them, AI, playingthem, human beings, blah, blah, blah.
What they discoveredis that 100% across the board,
(38:24):
if I was trying to sell them
magic or persuade themor anything with them,
you know, bring passion or emotion,anything with emotion, terrible.
People hated it, don't want it.They could pick it.
They didn't like it.
Even if they didn't know if it was,they just didn't like the thing.
Now, if I was giving them a listof car parts, if I was giving them
(38:46):
these are the features of the hotelall about it.
If I saying come to our beautifulhotel, don't want to hear it.
So there is.
I think human beingsdo recognize the difference
will that change in 20 years timewhen this generation comes up?
Having heard it so much,I don't know.
I'm not a fortune teller,but I do think there really is hope
because creative artistswant to be artists.
(39:08):
I think there's another aspect to it.
Also, if you're a creativeleaning on AI technology,
what you use will eventually comeright back around and hit you.
And if you're a writerusing an AI voice,
you'rethe next one to be replaced as well.
And I think that in the backof everyone's head,
they know that it's calledmutually assured destruction.
(39:29):
Robert.
Yeah I yeah I have a friendwho is doing an ADR session
and they couldn'tget the actor to do it properly
and they ended up,
you know, at the end of the sessionat the end of the hour with
and this is good enoughand you know half hour hour later my,
my buddy who's an engineer emailsthe director back and says like, hey,
I've got somethingthat I think you're going to like.
(39:52):
It solves the problem.
I don't think you're goingto want to know how I did it.
And the director said,I don't even want to hear it.
Don't I don't want to like it.
I don't, I justI want nothing to do with it.
And that was that, and that was cool.
It's like, I just
rather have an organic productionand not have any of this junk in it.
And that way, you know,we're all in it together and,
so what are our listenerssupposed to do now?
(40:14):
Join us.
Action item.
Where do they go reclaim. Number one.
Number one, if you are a voice actor,please join Nava.
It's nava voices.org.
They are doing the Lord's work.
They're out there every day.
Yeah.
Lava India or Ava or Kava or,you know,
look at the association of voiceactors in whatever area you live in.
(40:35):
They are the best of us.
Truly doing incredible.
We're truly doing incredible work.
Also, Nava and I'm sure all thatand karma and all of the other
all of us have it on their websitefor free right now.
An AI writerthat you can attach to any contract.
It is free for anybodyunder the sun to put on any contract
that you work on that says, you know,you don't have the right
(40:56):
to take my, recordingsto generate an AI voice.
So that is for free right now.
At Nava voices.org,I believe on there I subpage.
So that's number one.
Number two,if you want to hear more about what
we're doing, you can come to EthioVoxer I that's eta voxer.
I, we have a sign up where you canjust, you know, get our newsletters
(41:18):
when we have five minutesto put them together,
which is not as oftenas I would like.
You should just have I do that?
Hey, I will make wonderfulnewsletters.
Yeah.
No, because we're humans.
We want the humans to answer.I mean, I know it's easier, but.
But there is a real, real valueto that. Sorry.
I would also say legitimately,and I know
this feels like lip service,but it's not.
(41:39):
If you live in a country,
learn what
laws are going through your systemand how you can be involved.
If it means you live in the States
and you're calling your reps,call your reps.
I don't know what the process isin Australia, but, get involved.
I mean, they they need to knowthat this matters, right?
They need to know that,
it's not just the rich and famousthat are losing their voices.
(42:00):
It's literally all of us.
I think those are my.
Those are my big three risks.You got any others?
No, I think that's it.
Like, just,you know, just just be very reached.
Contracts read, read.
Your contract is almighty productionhouses read your contracts
for the fight. The fine.
What is the fine? Teeny tiny languageat the bottom of that thing.
Thank you. Fine print. Thank you.
(42:22):
And of all of those contractsabout training data
and what you were submitting towhen you want to get your quick
little pick up from zero shotor whatever, can be really helpful
if you're in the studio late at night
doing that,but you are giving your actor's
voice away and you were givingyour studios IP away.
So read your contract.
Please just have a conversationwith us, not us.
I have a conversationwith your actors.
(42:43):
Like I'm sure an actor would ratherjust do like a five minute
pickup than have their stuff uploadedto a site without their knowledge.
Please don't do that. Absolutely.Please don't do that.
Yeah, I think that's a huge thing.
If you're a writer, ifyou're an editor, if you're anybody,
you got to realize thatyou do not have the right to upload
any willynilly audio file into these systems.
(43:03):
These systems are currently,I think, pariahs.
Yeah.
And the other thing, one on the onthe closing note,
I cannot replicate the imperfectionsof the human.
That's right.
I mean, how would it possibly doTed Kennedy's voice?
I call that on that note.
What we should say.
Thank you, Clarissa, for being here.
But where they really.
(43:25):
Oh, I don't know howthat's done to dum dum dum dum.
Well, that was fun.
Is it over the audio? Sweet.
Thanks to try and Austrianaudio recorded using Source Connect,
edited by Andrew Peachesand mixed by the others.
Got your own audio issues?
Just ask Robert.
Don't call him tech supportfor George the tech wisdom.
(43:47):
Don't forget to subscribe to the showand joining the conversation
on our Facebook groupto leave a comment,
suggest a topic, or just say goodbye,drop us a note at our website.
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(00:46):
AI is a hot topic,and we have a couple of guests
to talk about trying to beat AIor at least control it a little.
We have the Russell, Gallaher and CC.
You. Thanks for having us.
Thanks for having us.Oh, you've been had.
If you believe you're really on thepodcast, thousands of admiring fans.
(01:07):
Womp womp.
Who wants to fire off first?
How are you going to savethe voiceover industry from AI?
We are.
Thank you so much for asking.
We are, you know.
So here's the here's the thing.
Larissa and I have both been voiceactors for many, many years.
I've been a voice actressfor, 17, 18 years.
(01:29):
I've worked in all the mediumsthat there are here.
And when I started finding my voice
on multiple websiteswithout my consent,
and when I reached outto the companies that were,
offering access to my voice for moneywithout paying me anything.
And I said to them, hey, that's me.
You don't have my permission to have
my replica in the first place,and you're not paying me for it.
(01:50):
Please remove it.They said no, really?
They said you don't own your voice.
And, they were right.
So this approach has been multi-foldnumber one.
I sit on the board of the NationalAssociation of Voice Actors.
Anybody in the voiceover industry,I would hope, is familiar with Nava
and the work that they've been doing.
They also spawned Avain Australia and Canada and,
(02:13):
multiple other,advocacy groups around the globe.
We've been working with legislatorsto get meaningful laws
passed around the protectionof our voices.
Adding the definition of voiceto biometric data
and copyrightable data,which is currently not a thing.
So in additionto doing the legislative path
and reallyworking to get laws passed,
(02:35):
you know, Larissa and I and
our co-founder Julian started talkingand saying, you know,
even if we get these laws passed,there is nobody that is going to care
more about a voice actorsvoice than voice actors.
Why are we not startingour own company?
Why are we not trying to beat themat their own game?
Why are we not planting a stakein the ground and saying, great,
we understand this technology ishere.
(02:56):
It's not moving backwards.It's only getting better.
This is how we expect to be treatedas human beings and as professionals.
And I think there's a a dignityto that that other companies
just aren't offeringbecause they are scraping every.
So so I just want to peela few things back.
Just the first thing you said,which is you don't actually
have rights to your own voice.
(03:19):
Can you elaborate on currently?
Yeah. Yeah. So we've never had to.
So if you look at biometric dataand, rights of publicity,
it always refers to name,image, likeness.
So for example, a celebrity can saythat's my picture on a billboard.
You don't have my permissionto use my picture on a billboard.
That is an infringementof my rights of publicity.
(03:40):
And you have to take it down.
Great voice was never
they never needed to add itto any of those definitions,
because we never had technologythat could believably copy it until,
several years ago.
Well, they didn't pass any lawsabout this, but several years ago,
I believe it was a Toyota dealership.
Hiredsomeone to sound like Bette Midler
(04:00):
because they went to Bette Midlerand said,
hey, we really want you to do our ad.
And she said, no, go pound rocks.
And so they hired a soundalike to come do it and pass it off
as Bette Midler.
She was able to sue and get ittaken down because she's a celebrity.
Right.
So she is able to get some,
you know, rights of publicity
associated to her voicebecause she is a well known quantity.
(04:23):
The rest of us are not.
So right nowyou're having a spate of,
you know, people getting fakekidnaping
phone calls from, like, a loved onewho's been kidnaped and sent $10,000
to this Nigerian princeto get your, kid back or whatever.
And they're very believableand they're very convincing,
and they're not illegal yetbecause there are no laws.
(04:43):
So comment on this one.
I can't name names,but a friend of mine is the voice
of a international realityshow, doing it for years.
It's a good gig.
And over the years,they've, beat them up.
We can't now payyou residuals for international play.
We're going to pay you a flat ratefor this.
We're going to lower your contractfor that.
(05:05):
Every year they sign it againbecause they need the gig.
And then one year they say we'reonly going to hire you for pickups.
And, and and they're like for what?
They're like, well the pickupswe can't get the eye to do correctly.
And then they say, well,I didn't give you permission.
And then they pull outwhatever contract they signed
and said, well,
you gave us the rights to owneverything and therefore we own it.
(05:29):
We can pump it into the theft machine
and you have no right to say thatwe don't and kick rocks.
And then they said, well, I guessthat's the end of our relationship.
I'm never going to do a pickupwith you.
So good luck using the I.
And you have what you have, I guess.
And it just destroyed the wholeor possibly I don't know, it's
just an awful situation and it seems,you know, obviously all driven
(05:52):
by how far low can we drivethe budgets and drive profit.
And it didn't need to happen.
Laws are currently being craftedto combat exactly that
because we as voice actors,you all know, have to typically
sign contracts, especially for gamesand especially for, you know,
this type of jobthat says in perpetuity
throughout the known universeand any technology
(06:13):
currently existingor to be developed.
Well, I'm sorry, that cannothold up in a court of law.
And there are laws being craftedright now that specify exactly
that any contractthat was signed with that language
cannot possiblybe held up in a court of law, because
that's ridiculous and egregious.
So there is legislation coming,
but the government takes its sweettime to get it done.
(06:37):
Yeah.
If I can interject, that wasthat was kind of part of that.
Everyone, is partof the other reason that,
you know, kindof we wanted to set this standard
because the current companies outthere that are providing
AI and providing these solutionsfor everyone,
a kind of throwing their handsup in the air and going.
But it's impossible.
We can't do this.
(06:58):
It's and it's not true.
It's very difficultbecause they built they did the old
Silicon Valley, you know,
for free, break things,break out forgiveness later.
And so we were like, well, look, partof this is about setting a standard
and proving that it can be done,proving that it's not impossible,
(07:18):
and that we're going to tryand do it.
Part of our going to Sag-Aftrawas about saying, we want to create
a training foundational modelthat isn't scraped.
Is it going to cost money? Yes.
Is it going to be difficult? Yes.
But if we can prove it can be doneand people are trying to do it,
it just makes it a little bit harderfor the bad actors to go.
(07:40):
But no, you can't, can't, can'tI don't know.
So that's, that's kind of the,the whole journey is as long as
there are people
who are doing the bad thingsand there's
no one proving that you can do itotherwise,
then why wouldn't they keep doing it?
So we're we're we're on the journeyto kind of prove that it can be done.
And we're making huge headwaywith the companies coming to us
(08:02):
going, please, this is all we wantbecause these guys are great
and they're amazing.
But the ethical authenticatedcontract
did past lineback to the beginning doesn't exist.
And that's what we want.
And that's whatwe're kind of came about to show.
We can do thatand we're going to make it happen.
If I may also real quicklybecause we come from this industry,
(08:24):
we're not some tech bros coming inand being like, yeah,
but I got this tech and it's super,bro dude.
Right?
We're actually
coming in saying, listen,we understand the existing ecosystem.
Ecosystem.We understand the infrastructure.
We understand the agency landscape.
This is the thing that we wantto include in this conversation.
We're not trying to bea casting place.
We're not trying to be a marketplace.
(08:45):
We want to make this a thingthat works for this industry, right?
With a technologythat is getting insanely good.
And if we don't step up and say,cool, cool, cool, that's great.
But I'm a human being andthis is how you work with my replica.
This is my agent.
She'll negotiate my contract right?
We have to put our foot downto say how we expect
(09:06):
to be treatedin this situation. Right?
I mean, there's
just no difference to mebetween then then musicians getting,
you know, as soon as you replicatemore than 2 or 3 notes in a melody.
Tenant.
No no no no no no no no nono no no no no.
Anybody rememberthat. Ice. Ice maybe.
Oh sorry.
It's melody.
It's it's rhythm
(09:27):
I mean whatwhat makes Christopher Walken
Christopher Walkenis his delivery right.
So you can't just,you know, this translates directly
to what voices are and voicesand likeness are to my in my opinion.
But of course, these are priorart things
that you have to call againstand say, yo, yeah,
I think the problem isthat the companies that did
this went racing to an obvious fact,and then they're like,
(09:49):
well,you didn't to find theft before.
And it's like you knew absolutelywhat it was before you started.
And just because you have like,
and the best parallel is,is your image likeness.
If this whole paradigm existswith your image,
how can it not exist with you?
Well, and for Scarlett Johansson
to get the traction she didwhen OpenAI released her.
Right.
(10:10):
That's basically saying
even if it was not ScarlettJohansson at the end,
if it was a different workflow,
she clearly hired herto sound like Scarlett
and then released it with a tweet
that said her, hi, here'smy right of publicity.
You cannot make money off of my name.
But but everyone deserves
some some level of right,of publicity, of their own voice.
(10:32):
And and the other thing I think,who is it like?
Siri, not Siri? TikTok.
When one voice actress Bev standing.Yeah.
Oh, she settled out of court.
I think she settled sono one knows what the settlement was.
And I think that was abit of possibly a disservice,
to, to not
really rake them over the coalsin public and.
(10:54):
Sure,but she's a one person voice actress
going up against a multi
and national conglomeratewith billions of dollars.
And she was.
But if she had gone into open court,
they would have dragged it outfor years.
I mean, listen,
we've had a lot of conversationsabout like court cases, right?
And oftentimes in a court case,it doesn't matter if you're right, it
matters if you have the moneyto withstand the other guy.
(11:15):
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.
And he's something I was going to askyou. Right.
Because, you know, with whatyou're suggesting, how does it work?
Like it's okay for voice actorsand all that sort of stuff.
It's going to be clear. Right.
But say, you know, little Freddywho has a podcast with his mate,
they record in their bedroom.
If someonedecided that they liked his voice
(11:36):
and they were going to clone him,how does he look after himself?
Because little Freddycan't even afford a court case.
Let me tell you, you can't.
Even voice actors can't do thisbecause I have clients that I know
have loaded sub mixes into whathave you.
I machine to get a scratch track out,and there's no concept that,
(11:58):
oh, I've loaded this until just likethe open end of it, that takes it.
And the closest example I haveis like the fly
where like you go into the podand the fly flew in the pod
two and now your voice comes out
with like a flysticking out the side of it.
And, and you're in it,you're in it, you're not in it.
It's arguable that it's all you.
It's half you because your datahas been put into this
(12:19):
giant mill without youhaving any input about that.
And the fact that anybodycan put anybody's voice into it
is a problem in and of itself.
Agreed.
There's only one way I can saythat you could have ever control this
properly, control the input,
and I can't see it actually happeninganyway.
Is that there?
If there was some wayand we talked about this
(12:40):
with Tim Friedman,was that correct for you?
Friedlander.
Friedlander. Friedlander.
Sorry, who's the president of Nava,by the way?
And just an all aroundamazing person.
And just thinking of a musician,I am.
I'm thinking of the wetlands. Yeah.
So, ifyou could actually get some kind of,
like, a fingerprint of your voicethat did it.
(13:00):
We have actually partneredwith a group
that has createdone of the most robust
watermarking, tracing, trackingtechnologies that we've seen.
And we've evaluated a lot.
But we found this company out of,
a group of graduate studentsout of USC that have created this
really incredible watermarkingtechnology that is, lossless.
(13:21):
It's it's, it's a visual token on
an audio or visual,you know, video, thing.
It's label. So you can have it.
If I record from home,I can put a token on it from home.
And then you send itto the production studio,
they can watermark itthere. It's got a different token.
Go to your distributionpartners. It's got a different token.
So you can see where any leaksmay happen.
And also
(13:42):
if it does end up on a non authorizednon sanctioned like YouTube page
number one it will call home.And so they
we can see when it's beingunauthorized and used elsewhere.
But the metadatathat's included in the watermark
will pointanybody who clicks on that original
or that YouTube link,that unauthorized YouTube link
will point themback to the original data owner.
(14:03):
So it actually generatesmore sales for people.
If it's put up on a, onan unauthorized YouTube page,
which is super, super cool,
and it's also looking at datapoisoning technology that can,
basically function like nightshadefor, visual art, where
if you havethis technology on your visual art
and somebody tries to upload itthrough glaze or whatever,
(14:23):
it will corrupt the fileand give you a useless piece of art.
And so we've been talkingwith other companies
that are creating a datapoisoning software
that will do the same thingto your voice going through 11.
So if they try to upload your voice
through 11,it will garble it and make it. Wow.
Yeah.
1111 is the biggest interesting hereisn't it?
Like, well, I mean there'sa lot of different companies.
11 is the 800 pound gorilla for sure,because they have the most money
(14:45):
and they have, youknow, venture capital backing.
And they've been around, you know,to be fair, they're not illegal.
They're not doing anythingillegally yet.
So yeah, it's. Yeah.
And for the uninitiated like me, 1111labs is a voice, voice AI platform.
Okay.
It's probably the most prolificat this point.
And they charge ten bucks a monthand you can have access
(15:06):
to thousands of voicesin their marketplace.
That's them calling.
They're threatening a lawsuitbecause we're talking about them.
Sorry. And they are extraordinary.
I do like they, theythey have really, you know,
gotten some great technologyand they, they have offered a service
to people who needed it at the time.
What we're trying to do is say, hey,there's a whole lot of people who,
(15:26):
you know, who want to use somethingdifferent because,
privacy is mandatoryor they just feel uncomfortable
being in this kind of generalmarketplace environment.
They want a more B2B environmentor the training data.
They want to be secured.
And, Andrew Petersgave me the finger in the best way.
Oh, Andrew.
Yeah, I do, I just, you know,I decided just to for Robert
(15:48):
because you do know 11 labs.
Robert I well I know themas soon as you said 11 labs.
But I was sitting here going,what the fuck's 11.
Yeah.
Because of the whole scandalin Australia at the moment
is there's a radio station using it.
I just it has nothing to do withSpinal Tap 11.
Yeah. That scandal is outrageous,by the way.
But exactly.
That's the point
is that we're all about, you know,we don't want to be the marketplace.
(16:08):
We don't want to be.Come and find voices.
And you can make these voicessay whatever they want.
The actorsthat that have already signed with us
to be digital replicas or any company
that comes to us who sayswe want to work with these people or,
you know, find us some people,whatever our our whole point
is to try and help with onboardingthrough agents and actors.
(16:29):
But every actor,
whilst they may not be ableto approve the script due to privacy
or whatever secrecy IP protection,
they will be ableto approve the general content.
So it will be the actor saying yayor nay
rather than the tech platform goingahead and saying we're fine with it.
Because again, we're all aboutwe want it to be about AI
(16:52):
complementing.
Yes, the human voice actors work,not about replacing it,
so we don't want to offer itto everyone
because we want to make surethat the companies we work with
are companies that are lookingto complement the actors experience,
as opposed to just do a quick, dirtyfix and rock the AI in.
And thanks very much.
Give me ten bucks and go, can I canI ask you a quick question?
If you if youwe look forward from here,
(17:13):
let's look forward say another fiveyears even right by go back
25 years.
Right. Pretty much.
And my we're all working at macaroni.
Yeah. We're all what? Mac OS?I wasn't born then. Sorry.
My my best mates.
Old man was the chairmanof the board of a company
that was one of the first developersin voice recognition.
(17:35):
Right.
He was the chairman of a companyin the UK that basically pioneered
that stuff. Awesome.
And I remember being on a car ridewith Roy, who was my mates dad,
and we were talking about voiceoverand all these stuff, and he said,
we were talking abouthow voiceover works.
And he said, there will come a daywhere a voiceover artist
won't be selling them,going into a studio
(17:56):
to do a session,they will be selling.
And back in those dayshe said CD right, but they will be
selling a file of their voiceto someone to use for the purpose.
That's been described.
Very Nostradamus of his. Fascinating.
So that's how long this stuff's beenin the pipeline, is my point, right?
That means the CIA has had it.
For how long?
(18:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's my point though.
They were talking about theselike at the time they would the time
they were developing new stuffthey're actually talking about.
Okay, how do we do this.
Well, and I would say even more starkis this when I first
really started paying attentionto this in 2020, it took about
7 to 10
hours of solid recording to geta really good replica of a person.
(18:38):
And you can do it one shot.
And then in the beginning of,
I was going to say at the beginningof 2022, took about six hours,
2024 took maybe an hour.
And today you can literally dowhat's called a zero shot for 3 to 5.
I'll say somethingabout the zero shot.
I think the zero shotrelies on insane
amounts of previously collecteddata on everybody else's voice
(19:00):
from beforeto understand the entire process.
And so all of that is still basedon theft
of everybody, because they've goneand sampled the whole world.
It's the same way that
GTP could never have learnedand figured out everything
without having the whole internetto suck up.
And, they've collected so many voicesnow that they can do a one shot.
(19:25):
You know that that is basedon having insane amounts of data,
essentially theand that goes back to what we're,
you know,I mean, all voice platforms.
I mean, you know,you can't build a house on, a swamp
unless you kind of bring
in the materials to support it,but you have to live in another house
until you can build the proper,strong foundation.
(19:49):
So I think, you know, the, the,the craziness of zero shot
is incredibly valuable to audio,audio production houses, etc..
So along the way of of getting there,if we can create the foundation
that it's not stolen voices,but it's voices
that who have signed a contract,who get a licensing fee
when that foundational modelis, is sold and licensed,
(20:12):
then those actors have contributedand are getting paid.
And it's not scraped,it's not stolen, it's not theft.
But until we build it,we have to live next door.
Years and years ago,I went to a meeting with the AA,
which is the Australian Unionfor actors,
and they were talking about,
kind of the way residuals work,which we don't have here necessarily.
(20:34):
We have rolloversand stuff like that,
but it was all about like basicallythe amount of times an ad gets
played, you get paid for it.
And I said to them,well, we have a system here already
with the music industry,which is APRA,
wherebecause everything was computerized
and radio,every time a song gets played,
it actually goes into a database
and people know
what songs being played andthey get their cut of their royalty.
(20:57):
I said, why don't you do a numberwith the same system
which has all the all the informationin the key number,
including the talent.
So every time it gets played,you get money.
Like if you do a deal where you go,okay, for three months only
they could play that 10,000 times inthree months, or you do a 12 months.
It could get played 500 times.
So the whole thingabout the duration of the usage of
(21:21):
that ad is irrelevant.
When you look athow many times it gets played.
But talking of that system,that's the kind of idea we need
for our voices.
So we have a key numberin everything that goes out with us.
Our informationinside that key number,
which is basically what you weretalking about before. But
I thought I try
and yeah, I by the way, I gotI got Pooh poohed about that.
(21:43):
We have the MPAA. Yes.
Is Navathe MPAA is the voiceover industry?
No. Nava is an advocacy group.
So Nava is not a union.
Nava is not trying to track residuals
or any of that stuff because that'sa whole other set work.
But, but I mean, what's going to bethe equivalent of the MPAA
and the RIAA for voiceover?
(22:05):
Someone'sgoing to have to step up and do it.
I mean, we are trying to get towho who's
who's motivated, who's motivatedto do, who has the time and the money
and who wants to paint a targeton their boards.
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
I mean,
I mean, how much how much ofthis is SAG and they after
it is like sitting backand being reactionary instead of,
on top of it actually.
(22:26):
Yeah,there's a lot of really good things.
And I think SAG know, listen,and I, I think SAG
could improve on a lot of things.
And I think voice overis one of those things. Right.
We are often very overlooked.
In the greater sphere of things,which is incredibly frustrating.
But, you know,
thanks to SAG, I have a pensionand I have health care.
(22:47):
Right.
So is it perfect? No,it is certainly not.
But are we better than we would bewithout it?
Yes, I believe so. Yeah.
I think it'sjust the size of the contracts.
Like a record label can is raking inginormous sums of money.
Film industryis raking in some sums of money, but
voice actors can be or not.
Yeah. Sorry. Game companies.
(23:09):
But the
actors themselves don't have that.
I don't know.
That's what's interesting.
Like recording artists have these,
have these copyright thingsand all this stuff that protects
them, mechanical licensesand all these things for voice
actors just never have had that.
But also, like, a recording artistdoesn't actually make money
until they go on tour, right? Well,now they don't.
They used to. That's true now. Yeah.
(23:30):
That's used to make a lot of moneybefore. Yeah.
We also used to make a lot of moneyon a nationwide union commercial.
Right, right.
And those have gone the way the dodo.
So like,
is there room for improvementall around?
Yes, absolutely.
Which is again,why we have to figure out
how to put a stake in the groundand say this, not that this.
And I
and I think,
(23:51):
I think one of the things to realize
is that there's always going to bethe Wild West.
There's going to be technologycompanies from whatever country
that are going to be like,
we don't care about the rules andand go sign up and go clone a voice.
But as long as the sort of
whatever, like rules based likeif you want to be a legit company
in the US, in Europe, etc.,selling product, making product,
(24:14):
having a decent name,
then you're going to playby these rules
and you're not going to steal voices.
And then if you want to have likesome small time YouTube channel, that
or even YouTube shouldn'tallow any of it to be trafficked
within it. But,
you know, you can't putall the toothpaste back in the tube,
but I feel like you can get peopleto voluntarily
take their little bit of toothpasteand put it back in the tube
(24:36):
until there'sa significant amount of it. I've.
I've tried that, Robert,and I've actually managed
to get most of the toothpasteback in the tube
to squeeze all the air outand then suck it back in.
Yeah, yeah. Did you didyou use it first?
Did you brush your teethand then somehow like,
wow, absolutely.
Wastenot want not recycling, man. Come on.
Well it'sclearly going to be a carrot and or
(24:56):
and a stick kind of approachto this thing change.
It's going to be some of both.
I don't knowif anybody in the voiceover world
has a big enough stick.
But you know, there'sa lot of carrots out there.
I think one of the other thingsthat it's not just the actors,
it is everything that revolves aroundthe actors.
There's entire scopes of layersof industry and peeling the onion.
(25:21):
And this is what I do.
I have a terrible voice,but I edit a lot of voice.
You know, like there's a
whole bunch of jobs that thisit affects directly in a big way.
I kind of feel like the way forwardhere is to, to sort of
not just focus on voice voice actors,because as I was kind of trying
to allude to before, I mean, JockoWillock's willingness, right?
(25:42):
One of the hottest podcastsin the world.
How much money could a company
make by eyeing his voice and using itwherever?
If he's got no right over it
and all that sort of stuff,the guy's got millions of followers.
Yeah, well, I'm probably giving awaygiving away the sacred C, right?
But I mean,and this is kind of where I wonder
whether rather than, than voicetrying to do their own thing,
(26:03):
whether everybody who's got a stakehere should come together.
I know there's no podcast as a unionand that's not a clear way forward,
but surely if you got there would bea great way to get critical mass?
Absolutely.
You know, if everyone is callingtheir their congressmen saying, hey,
I don't want my grandmothercalling me or me or who I don't know
who, calling my grandmotherand telling you that I've been.
That's one of the reasonswhy with our technology, we
(26:25):
we absolutely must have watermarking
right wi and trace tracing, trackingand hopefully soon poison pill.
But that's exactly the reason isbecause there's too much at stake
for too many people.
Right.
Yeah.
For Tracy in the audiencecan you explain to her
what poison polling is.
Yeah. So, hi, Tracy.
(26:46):
Hi, Tracy. Let's tell you something.
I thought you said for tracing.
Should I tell you,poison pill is basically to,
put some codein our watermark technology
that would corrupt a file offif someone tries to upload it
to an AI voice platform and generatea new voice with our audio.
Right.
So if we could put in a watermarkfrom home that says, this is mine,
(27:08):
I own it, this is where it's going,please don't post it online.
If it shows up on YouTube, we,
you know, itpops up on our tracing tracking site.
And then if somebody triesto take that audio
and upload it to 11without your consent,
it would corrupt the fileand spit out an unusable audio.
Thank you.
So just just curious.
But you pass that through an analogpass and poison pill is gone.
(27:32):
Supposedly it stays.
I mean, that
that is one of the thingsthat we have been working on
a lotis making sure the watermark stays.
Now, the poison pillcould be different.
That's a separate technologyand one that's going to be
a bit more in-depth,but the watermark stays.
This is like you're saying, becauseyou're thinking of it like Hdcp.
Robert.
Yeah, I mean,
I mean, any of those things like relyon somewhat of a faithful transfer.
(27:56):
So there's always a way to transferit unfaithfully enough
but good enough to strip itof whatever protection
that's been going onsince the days of scams.
The cat tapes in the CDs,
you know,
the logical way of stripping it,
the logical wayof doing it is the run that
we should be giving this away.
But I would imagineyou run it through analog to.
(28:17):
That's that's what I just said.
You know,
you just do a tape to an analogdevice and you probably will strip.
Yeah, but a whole bunch
if we have to, we have to havesome element of relying
on the goodwill of peoplebecause not everyone's an enemy
not allowed to kill people,but people still kill people.
So that's one of the things
if you want to find a way to be to doit, you can, sorry, roll back
(28:37):
even banks, a fortressthat was going to give made my point.
I mean, you know, there'syou can only do so much, right?
But at least you're doing something.Yeah.
And we've got it to the pointwhere the mastering it'll, it'll
it lasts through,
a ton of mastering, kind
of, you know, reverb, compression,ripping it apart.
It's like got very, very shortgaps through.
(28:58):
So you could really literally
just take two seconds of it,drop it into something else,
master it, put music on it,pull it somewhere else,
and it'll follow itall the way around.
So it's been there any sort of,
anything that I have to doas an engineer to make that happen?
Or does that happenthe moment you put that on?
Well, actually. Okay, how about this?
How about you come in to the studioand I'm recording you?
(29:21):
What isis there a legal obligation on me
to put that watermark on there,or how does that work?
It's it's like a thingthat she puts on her tooth.
And then when she speaks,it all comes out in code.
It's just,
I'm sorry, James Bond,but but it makes a little bit
of everything that's the problem.
It's it's it's like having a dogin the back of your throat.
Yeah. No, I'm just interested in.
(29:42):
How does that end where currentlythere's no law, right.
Currently it's a it's a handshake.
No, but how do you see it though.How do you how do we say.
Well, I would just say it.
Listen, I would love
to have it in the hands of everybodyso that I'm recording from home.
I watermark all of my stuff.That leaves here.
You know,you get it at your production studio,
you send a different watermark
on a different layerand send it off to whomever. Right?
(30:03):
I would love to see that.
And I would love for that to be,you know,
kind of the quoteunquote gentleman's handshake
of the industry of like,hey, you like to work?
I like to work. Oh my God,do you like money? I like money.
Let's do this togetherand make sure that we don't,
you know, kill our industry.
For ease of uploading your voiceto 11.
Right.
The other day,I saw my first ad on Facebook saying,
(30:25):
take the stress out of mixing.
And it was, you know,I do your mixing for you.
So, you know, it's like,take yourself out of a job.
I was at Blackmagic booth at NAB,you just bring in your,
DaVinci resolve project, you bringthe audio into into Fairlight
and you say Fairlight.
Just mix it, please.
In about three minutes later,the video is mixed well,
(30:49):
so obviously they don't wantany audio engineers as their clients.
Black magic is video.
I mean,I mean, no one's using Fairlight
to mix their audio anyways,so I guess that goes to video
people are using.
The whole point is the videopeople will not need to use as many
audio books.
Yeah, I guess that's like yeah,yeah, yeah.
But what what we're finding though
is, is exactly that,that people are coming to us
(31:12):
because we don't like, I thinkat heart, the majority of people,
or at least the majority,everyone that's coming to us
is because they don'twant to just give into the system.
And yes, these technologiesare amazing at the moment
because they have all this moneyand investor money behind it,
but they're coming to usbecause we're offering them
something thatthese other companies don't.
(31:33):
And I think the more, you know,not that I'm inviting competition,
but the whole point ismake this better for the industry,
protect voice actors, protectaudio engineers, protect the,
you know, agents.
And I mean, we when we started,we were even kind of going,
oh, we should come up with like thecontracts for the actors and decide
how much money are you goingto get paid for your AI thing?
(31:54):
And we were like, whoa, whoa, whoa,hang on a second.
There are agents that already do thatthat are superb at doing it.
And then talking to our agent,she was like, hey, you know,
and we all kind of said, well,what about if it's like,
you know, in a year's timeor even now, really, to be fair,
but as the agents, they look after
the human being Larisa actorthat goes out and does whatever or
(32:17):
and sorrythe digital replica Larissa actor
and then you can put the two togetherfor certain jobs.
So if Larissais doing a Toyota campaign
because I'm amazing is you know that,then she can
she can say that to, you know,the Toyota production house.
Well, you know, would you like herto do your internal messaging
(32:37):
so you keep a brand consistent voiceso you have a human being,
voice working
and you have the complimentarydigital replica
or, you know, a systemthat keeps the industry
the same industry where peoplecan still keep their jobs
and still be creative beings,but it gives a lift
and a support to an areathat is in some places.
(32:59):
I mean, it can do it better, faster,
but is as long as it'salso also doing it authentically.
That's what we care aboutas long as people are getting paid
when it happensfrom everyone down the chain.
Then that I think that's that'swhat we're striving for.
I was going to say howhow are the agents?
Amazing, amazing.
It's been amazing because it reallyis, you know, our job, the way we see
(33:24):
this is our job is to augmenttheir ability to make money.
Right.
So I see a future where agentshave an animation department,
a commercial department,a trailer department
and a digital replicadepartment. Right.
So we make, audio demos of the talentthat record with us and send it to
their agent so their agent can use itas a marketing tool.
(33:47):
And they've been amazing.
We've spokenwith every agency in town,
and several agenciesaround the globe.
And again,the fact that we're actually coming
to them as people in the industrynot going like, yeah,
we made some tech, bro, like,we actually want to work with you.
Let'swe are going to protect your actors.
We are not going to add
their information to training dataunless they have a separate contract
(34:08):
that says, yes,I would like to be added to your
training datafor an additional fee. Right.
We'renot opening this up as a marketplace.
The people that contract with us
have very specific accessto very specific models.
It's not just a free for all.
So agents feel comfortable with usbecause we actually give a damn,
you know,the biggest winner out of this?
If this if this fliesthe way you want it to fly,
(34:30):
the biggest winneris going to be the agents.
Because without this, they're gone.
Yeah, yeah.
Can cancan I come back to to one question
I started asking before,but we never got to the end of this.
Before you go,if we get to this nirvana where,
all the boxes it takesin, everybody's aligned and voice
actors are selling their samplesto go off
(34:51):
and have commercialsmade out of them and stuff.
What does that do tothe craft of voice acting in general?
Listen, I don't think main charactersare going to be replaced
anytime soon, right?
I think therewill always be a place for,
you know, the Courtney
Taylors and the, you know, Nolan
North's to come in and bring lifeto a character beautifully.
(35:14):
I think there is goingto be some hardship
in different parts of the industry,and it's hard to see it coming
and know that there's very littleany of us can do to stop it.
That scares me. A lot.
And entry level jobsI'm worried about. Right.
So again, like ourour whole vision has been to
not replace people but to give themadditional sources of income.
(35:35):
So we've actually turned awaya ton of companies
that just want to come in and startreplacing people willy nilly.
And we really want to make sure thatthat is not the path that we take.
There are otherswho don't care. Right.
And they will take those jobs.
OtherAI platforms will take those jobs.
And that's very difficultto know that it's coming.
I think the industry will shrink.
(35:55):
I think the people who are ableto make a living doing this
will become a smaller circle.
I thinkit's going to be a really tough
couple of years until the pendulumkind of shifts back.
I liken it to this around 2000,
if you'll recall, 3D generation 3D
graphics came out and suddenlyeverything looked like Shrek, right?
(36:16):
It was like this big, bulbous herdick.
Negative alreadywalking around, right.
And everything looked like that.
And it was ugly, right.
And it was really kitschyfor a minute. It was kind of neat.
And then it was like,oh God, this all looks the same.
And people started complaining,right?
Like, oh,it's already that way with AI voices.
And I think the only thingthat's even better
is if I starts feeding on itself
and startsgetting worse and worse and worse.
(36:37):
So now we have more 2D animation,main characters, and 3D animation
background, right?
I can see the same thing happening
with AI,because a lot of the companies
that we've spoken to have been like,look, man,
I don't know, my boss just told meI got to implement.
I don't know how,I don't know why, but I got to do it.
Even if it's more expensivethan hiring a human.
I got to fit AI in here somehow.
(36:58):
So there's this massivependulum swing
because it's the buzzwordand everybody's
hair is on fire to get AI goingand make it the thing.
And there's a backlash.
Games right noware very cautious about using AI.
Any of the major gamestudios are like,
I'm not going to shipanything with AI.
I don't want to upset my fans.
Great. That's great for actors.
(37:18):
And so I think there is a placethat that it will work.
And there is a placethat it will even help.
Can I add two things?
Yeah.
One is like what we are hearing a lotis that all of you, all who,
audio productionpeople are all creatives as well.
And creativeswant to work with creatives.
So the kind of thatthat synergy together will always say
(37:40):
that's what all other game companiesare doing as it's like, you know,
we may use it for scratch or for R&Dand to speed up the process.
Or maybe in commercials,we might do it
so that we can get a feel and hearhow the commercial sounds.
But we want to go to the actor
for the real thing,because we understand that,
that that kind of magic
that comes out of a human being,the soul that comes out of
(38:02):
the human being.
What is it I doesn't havetrauma is kind of the catch phrase
is that that'swhere the magic happens.
And that there have been studiesspecifically, SiriusXM
did an extraordinary studywhere they were playing like,
polling a whole lot of people,
playing them, AI, playingthem, human beings, blah, blah, blah.
What they discoveredis that 100% across the board,
(38:24):
if I was trying to sell them
magic or persuade themor anything with them,
you know, bring passion or emotion,anything with emotion, terrible.
People hated it, don't want it.They could pick it.
They didn't like it.
Even if they didn't know if it was,they just didn't like the thing.
Now, if I was giving them a listof car parts, if I was giving them
(38:46):
these are the features of the hotelall about it.
If I saying come to our beautifulhotel, don't want to hear it.
So there is.
I think human beingsdo recognize the difference
will that change in 20 years timewhen this generation comes up?
Having heard it so much,I don't know.
I'm not a fortune teller,but I do think there really is hope
because creative artistswant to be artists.
(39:08):
I think there's another aspect to it.
Also, if you're a creativeleaning on AI technology,
what you use will eventually comeright back around and hit you.
And if you're a writerusing an AI voice,
you'rethe next one to be replaced as well.
And I think that in the backof everyone's head,
they know that it's calledmutually assured destruction.
(39:29):
Robert.
Yeah I yeah I have a friendwho is doing an ADR session
and they couldn'tget the actor to do it properly
and they ended up,
you know, at the end of the sessionat the end of the hour with
and this is good enoughand you know half hour hour later my,
my buddy who's an engineer emailsthe director back and says like, hey,
I've got somethingthat I think you're going to like.
(39:52):
It solves the problem.
I don't think you're goingto want to know how I did it.
And the director said,I don't even want to hear it.
Don't I don't want to like it.
I don't, I justI want nothing to do with it.
And that was that, and that was cool.
It's like, I just
rather have an organic productionand not have any of this junk in it.
And that way, you know,we're all in it together and,
so what are our listenerssupposed to do now?
(40:14):
Join us.
Action item.
Where do they go reclaim. Number one.
Number one, if you are a voice actor,please join Nava.
It's nava voices.org.
They are doing the Lord's work.
They're out there every day.
Yeah.
Lava India or Ava or Kava or,you know,
look at the association of voiceactors in whatever area you live in.
(40:35):
They are the best of us.
Truly doing incredible.
We're truly doing incredible work.
Also, Nava and I'm sure all thatand karma and all of the other
all of us have it on their websitefor free right now.
An AI writerthat you can attach to any contract.
It is free for anybodyunder the sun to put on any contract
that you work on that says, you know,you don't have the right
(40:56):
to take my, recordingsto generate an AI voice.
So that is for free right now.
At Nava voices.org,I believe on there I subpage.
So that's number one.
Number two,if you want to hear more about what
we're doing, you can come to EthioVoxer I that's eta voxer.
I, we have a sign up where you canjust, you know, get our newsletters
(41:18):
when we have five minutesto put them together,
which is not as oftenas I would like.
You should just have I do that?
Hey, I will make wonderfulnewsletters.
Yeah.
No, because we're humans.
We want the humans to answer.I mean, I know it's easier, but.
But there is a real, real valueto that. Sorry.
I would also say legitimately,and I know
this feels like lip service,but it's not.
(41:39):
If you live in a country,
learn what
laws are going through your systemand how you can be involved.
If it means you live in the States
and you're calling your reps,call your reps.
I don't know what the process isin Australia, but, get involved.
I mean, they they need to knowthat this matters, right?
They need to know that,
it's not just the rich and famousthat are losing their voices.
(42:00):
It's literally all of us.
I think those are my.
Those are my big three risks.You got any others?
No, I think that's it.
Like, just,you know, just just be very reached.
Contracts read, read.
Your contract is almighty productionhouses read your contracts
for the fight. The fine.
What is the fine? Teeny tiny languageat the bottom of that thing.
Thank you. Fine print. Thank you.
(42:22):
And of all of those contractsabout training data
and what you were submitting towhen you want to get your quick
little pick up from zero shotor whatever, can be really helpful
if you're in the studio late at night
doing that,but you are giving your actor's
voice away and you were givingyour studios IP away.
So read your contract.
Please just have a conversationwith us, not us.
I have a conversationwith your actors.
(42:43):
Like I'm sure an actor would ratherjust do like a five minute
pickup than have their stuff uploadedto a site without their knowledge.
Please don't do that. Absolutely.Please don't do that.
Yeah, I think that's a huge thing.
If you're a writer, ifyou're an editor, if you're anybody,
you got to realize thatyou do not have the right to upload
any willynilly audio file into these systems.
(43:03):
These systems are currently,I think, pariahs.
Yeah.
And the other thing, one on the onthe closing note,
I cannot replicate the imperfectionsof the human.
That's right.
I mean, how would it possibly doTed Kennedy's voice?
I call that on that note.
What we should say.
Thank you, Clarissa, for being here.
But where they really.
(43:25):
Oh, I don't know howthat's done to dum dum dum dum.
Well, that was fun.
Is it over the audio? Sweet.
Thanks to try and Austrianaudio recorded using Source Connect,
edited by Andrew Peachesand mixed by the others.
Got your own audio issues?
Just ask Robert.
Don't call him tech supportfor George the tech wisdom.
(43:47):
Don't forget to subscribe to the showand joining the conversation
on our Facebook groupto leave a comment,
suggest a topic, or just say goodbye,drop us a note at our website.
Rodeo.com.
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