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Would you sell your voice? For how much?

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Bruce
Boardmeister

Joined: 06 Jun 2005
Posts: 7926
Location: Portland, OR

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:56 am Post subject: Would you sell your voice? For how much?

If you are signed with Erik Sheppard's agency you probably saw this email and its responses. I did, and I'm dismayed to say the least. It looks like many members of the community are willing to sell out to "the machines" or A.I. I'm posting Erik's original email and the many responses. What are your thoughts? Happy to give up and let some computer do your work?

From Erik Sheppard:

Quote:

Those of you who know me know that I am extremely protective of the voiceover industry and do my best to meet threats to our livelihood head on. As you can imagine, this AI stuff has me flustered. In just the past few years we've weathered a client exodus from the union, declining / deplorable rates, a massive glut of talent in the market, the negative effects of the P2P leeches and a global fucking pandemic. How much more can we take?

AI VO is still in its infancy but it's getting better daily, being trained by ignorant voiceover actors and by unscrupulous bots pilfering your voices online. Your voice may have already been stolen, cloned and sold by a past client of yours and you don't even know it. However it is made, it will soon be used professionally by clients who currently use you. My bet is that quite a lot of corporate and eLearning type stuff will go AI first.

So, boo to AI! Boo to those who take our voices without compensation. Boo to a new technology being used to undermine us.

I want to know what you think of the flip side. Using AI for yourself. Cloning your voice, that only you would own, and selling licenses for its use. Perhaps a reduced rate for AI use and your usual rates for a standard "live" read.

Would this be welcome and empowering passive income or no good? I welcome your thoughts.

His followup email:

Quote:

First, a huge thank you to all who shared their thoughts in response to my AI email. The response was overwhelming. Secondly, a huge and sincere apology for not getting back to you all sooner and individually. The response was overwhelming.

I expected most of what was said. Actually, I expected way more anti-AI sentiments / death threats for even mentioning it but those were very few. The overall consensus seems to be, "Well, this will suck but we may have no choice." That is my thinking as well and I'm trying to see if there is a profitable / fair / VO-positive path forward. There may or may not be. Until then, I appreciate working with all of you real people.

A representative selection of feedback received is below:

I would (sadly) clone my voice for passive income only because it feels like if I don’t - I risk no income from VO at all.

I'm open to it, but not necessarily excited about it.

Our future is both live reads and our cloned voices that we license and have control of what projects we are willing to all to use our voices.

I have considered AI as a positive influence on voiceovers ONLY in the context of I myself licensing my voice to my clients. Never selling it outright to any client either direct or through a P2P

I would certainly be open to using AI for myself in the way that you described. I do believe that change is inevitable and there is merit and accepting that and trying to bend so that we don't break. I would love if there were leaders (like you) who were advocating for one particular company to create those voices and one AI voice bank with standard rates set.

I'm down, but I wish AI would just f****** disappear forever.

A lotta big name VO's have been using their synthetic voices created on Veritone since the beginning ie. I'm looking at creating my own avatar voice using elevenlabs.io

Maaaaybe if we had total and complete control over the scripts and usage? Maybe. A very small maybe. I've already had my voice stolen and used in one of those AI sites. It's terrifying to know anyone can have "me" say anything and I have no control.

It seems like the only thing that AI is going to fully replace is crappy talent for clients who couldn't care less about anything but cost.

I have cloned my voice recently, which sounded awful btw, maybe to be used to license it on my website. This would be a great way to make passive income IF people actually contacted us to use it. I think some will still scrape our voices from demos, spots, and whatever else and clone it without our permission.

I think we either get onboard and begin taking control of this freight train before someone else takes control of it for us. In other words, I'd much rather have my copyrighted voiceprint made available to clients through both agent-driven and self-marketed means as an additional revenue stream rather than not.

I have no interest in cloning my normal voiceover voice, but I have pondered the idea of cloning some character voices for licensing.

With production houses like Lotas stepping into the AI roster game, I’ve considered creating an AI version of my voice to be sold as a passive income.

I have been exploring those options that you mention and the ethics of the companies making the model is the thing that I question the most. Lots to be said about Eleven Labs (a lot of lawsuits and bad press!), but then people like Veritone who are very much about actors keeping their IP.

I’ve always thought if we could clone our own voice and own it, that would be the only way it would make sense. Or at least if it would be possible to copyright our voice signature so if anyone stole it we could sue. Selling it, at ANY realistic price, is suicide.

Being in control and directly benefiting from it is the only smart play moving forward.

A system of licensing is the only way we’ll have any hope of protecting ourselves. Problem is, there are already unscrupulous people and companies who don’t comply to any standard, already distributing material.

The most sensible way forward with the technology that won’t be disappearing anytime soon, is to pivot with it. That would require CONTROL and CONSENT. I would be open to creating an AI model of myself with explicit ownership and control of usage

At first blush, I'd be interested. Feels like a way to stay on the wave instead of getting crushed by it.

I would be open to the idea of owning my voice and figuring out rate structures for its use.

Licensing out our own voice at a competitive reduced rate and keeping our live rate as usual. The Ai version rate needs to stay competitive to keep the buyer from just finding a cheaper alternative. BUT a roster full of 8,000,000 AI voice turds who just bought a mic on Amazon last night won't work. It needs to be a very tight roster of AI VO pro voices so the passive income will matter, and it should be marketed that way - real VO pros with an AI option.

I think that it would make sense for things like licensing for simple audio prompts and upkeep…with an initial live session and then monthly or annualized contracts for usage. Also, I’ve thought about what if I’m sick? Or I want to go out of town on vacation and I don’t feel like bringing all of my gear with me for every single “possible” contingency. What if I had my own voice cloned and ready to go…client asks for a pickup or some prompts or a spot while I’m away. I simply talk to you or the client directly about it, work out a good rate, and basically “type” my voice into my computer and send it in…before I head to the beach.

I think it would be heavily dependent on the contract, and while use of AI wouldn’t need a session, usage fees should remain at industry standard, which hopefully declined no further

I believe cloning your voice for AI isn't TERRIBLE as long as we can set guidelines and still make passive income. We can't stop what is obviously one of the biggest breakthroughs thus far. I don't like it but we can't stop it, we can help shape it. My biggest concern, is there any real value to our voices once it hits and they could literally sample any voice and EQ or tweak to their delight?

I have an AI voice created by VocalID that is supposed to be what you are talking about. Controlled and owned sort of by me. It was created at the end of 2021 and so far I have seen nothing come of it. I know several people who get paid for their AI clones regularly and I don't like it (because I love being behind the mic ) but I do see the benefit of trying to stay on the cutting edge of things

It's difficult to find a way for my voice to be able to be offered in that fashion though. Veritone was offering it for a while, but wanted $9000 for the voice to be stored in their systems, and then a monthly fee on TOP of that. I haven't seen any better alternatives, unfortunately.

I know AI is meant to be exciting but it honestly scares the shit out of me and makes me worry that VO will be a thing of the past in no time.

I've been thinking of cloning my voice for years just so I could travel, so yes. I need to continue to make a living for at least 15-20 more years. I'm all for passive income and in for cloning if it will keep food on the table wherever in the world I may be.

I nearly contracted with BeyondWords, however, their 'in perpetuity' contractual requirement was unacceptable for me. Not to mention being offered a rate of $0.20 per 1 million characters was laughable, AI voice or not.

While I absolutely detest the idea of going to the dark side and creating a voice clone, I am considering it...as long as I can keep all rights to it and only license it out as I feel comfortable. If I never feel comfortable...then I never have to do it...and if I feel comfortable, then I'll have it ready.

I have signed up for one of those voice replication sites (elevenlabs.ai) but haven't gone as far as creating a synthetic voice for myself yet. I am still nervous to have that out there, but I probably will at some point. Partly out of morbid curiousity, but also because I have heard it can come in handy in a pinch (if your client needs a pickup while you're on vacation, etc). I think I would be totally open to licensing it too, as long as the contract was like, CRYSTAL CLEAR on how they can and cannot use it, how long, etc.

I'm thinking I should be open to any and all options going forward (licensing, etc). I'd never be a moron like the newbies who give my voice to AI programs for $500 so they can take my voice, make better programs, and ultimately boot me forever.

I would only ever agree to my voice being cloned, if things were absolutely watertight legally, and I was also protected by my voice agent in any transactions. Any potential agreements would need to be thoroughly vetted, as would the company. If I ever agreed to any specific use of my cloned voice, the rate would need to be near a live recording rate. I would also NEVER undertake any AI work without it coming via my agent.

IF (and that's a BIG IF) I found a way to voice clone myself and farm out the lower tier work to my own AI stream, I would consider it in the name of passive income. But it'd have to be bullet proof and impossible to steal and I'm not sure I see a time where that combination of system locks exists.

I think if I were going to ‘license’ my voice, I would want it to be on a project by project basis - which is maybe not as appealing/valuable - but I don’t want to miss out on a huge job for Nike because somewhere New Balance is using my AI voice for pennies on the dollar. Taking advantage of the technology while retaining control of your career seems to be a very tricky proposition.

I'm looking into Eleven Labs and making my own ai voice. I had signed up with VocalID years ago and recorded 30+ hours of time in the booth recording lines to get an AI voice model from them but nothing happened with them. They got purchased by Veritone, and it has resulted in nothing.

AI is only directable as a client is capable of describing EXACTLY what they want, and we know that’s not a widely held skill set, so, as you mentioned, the industrial stuff is likely to go first because those users care less about delivery and quality.

The reality is, we currently have no regulation, no safeguards, and no intellectual property laws protecting our voices or our identities in this arena. All it takes is whatever company one uses to model one's own voice to get bought by a competitor who guts the TOS, and you're fucked. There's no ethical AI company right now, because there's no ethical company, absent government regulations preventing it from exploiting whatever it can.

Right now, I am waiting for sag-aftra to put out some sort of official licensing fee. I know there are some people working on that so hopefully that will give us some guidance as to what is "fair". And then I would hope that the non-union rates would at least come close to that.
I have already found my animation characters on some of those AI sites, so it would be nice to at least be compensated.

I'd be open to cautiously exploring cloning my voice that I would own and licensing rights.

I AM toying with cloning my own voice for my own use in a program called DESCRIPT....but nothing else so far. Whether I'd license it for someone else to use is probably a case-by-case basis.

Ultimately all pro voices should be copyrighted and voice generators controlled by the voice.

I have been toying with the idea of creating an AI voice. I'm not sure burying my head in the sand and pretending it's not happening is the way forward...but I do have fears surrounding it. Having it sitting passively on an AI generator website for someone to buy without my knowledge is a complete no

Breaks my heart, but I think we are beyond being able to create and therefore control our own voices being used as AI. There are too many real sounding AI voices out there for cheaper than we would have to charge for ours. Why spend the money on a pro VO AI when you can get a "good enough" sounding one for way less money?

I do believe that there could be a safe place to store our voices and sell them to ethical companies that we chose, IF we chose to. The question is who is trustworthy? Who is going to record all of the audio? Who will keep it safe?

To get ahead of the onslaught of our robot masters, I entered into an agreement with VocalID to create an AI version of my voice - with about 25-30 other VOs at the time. We (talent) would narrate into their software system for training, they would do the tech stuff & develop the AI voice, and we'd split any revenue from the sale of that AI voice services. To date, not a single inquiry or sale has happened.

I certainly don’t feel I can safely give my voice to any AI tech company, even if it’s to clone it for myself. I don’t trust them & I don’t feel the legal system is ready to deal with any fallout as yet.

Since there is no way to avoid this I feel like controlling my own version is the next best option.

I have been giving cloning my voice some thought. However my roadblock to that has been my lack of understanding how it will work and how I can protect my rights while allowing clients to use my AI voice.

Recording and licensing our own models is really the only way

I’d never thought of the possibility of utilizing AI in a way that we have more control and ownership over. Obviously I don’t love it, but I’d definitely be open to talking about it more.

I’d be open to this - but only until there is some kind of regulation and protective/tracking measures in place to know that buyers aren’t taking advantage of the use of my voice. Not sure how long this will take for the ‘world’ to get on board with regulation/protection/tracking

At this point, I would be interested in learning more about cloning my voice that only I would own and selling licenses for its use. There are a lot of questions marks… would a potential client be interested in my cloned voice at a reduced rate when they can get another AI sound-alike at perhaps a much lower rate?

Properly licensed, vetted distributors and compensated accordingly, I could see AI being a welcomed passive income source. But, it still makes me nervous.

As far as cloning my voice and selling it, I'm not opposed to it given it paid a reasonable sum but don't really see it being particularly monetizable, at least not in the way we're used to. I think most clients willing to pay decent sums of $$ do so for the directability in a session and to show their clients that they know how to find the real pros. If anyone just needs a voice kinda like mine and boiler plate read, there will soon be no shortage of services that will do it for pennies per page, which I'm not interested in selling my voice for.

I am cautiously for making an AI clone of my voice in the manner you presented. Of course, I'd want to know more about how that licensing worked long-term and how my rights to my voice are retained.

I would be open to offering my own AI voice to clients as a lower priced alternative to a traditional read. However, I've already experimented with several platforms to generate a clone of my voice print...and while the technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, I've found that it's not yet at a level of quality I would feel comfortable with offering to clients.

Anything AI or TTS scares the crap out of me, however, I am interested in trying to take control of my voice by cloning and owning the rights to it. I do think it's a way to get ahead of this thing along with adding riders to contracts and reading all of the fine print.

I am totally down for using AI for myself. My thinking is, it’s coming anyway. If there is some way to still make a profit to allow people to use it for specific purposes, I’m completely ok with that, provided they abide by specific usage

I think being proactive is really the only way to go with this, because it’s not slowing down, it’s changing every single day as you mentioned, and having established usage deals in place seems like the best option at this point. We need to find ways claim some vestige of ownership before it spirals out of control. SAG-AFTRA is already at least 10 years behind.

I’m open to all possibilities, but I’m not sure that non-celeb/famous voices would command much income when put into AI. If someone has a really unique voice and has the reps and ability to protect it, sure, they could get some cloning money. But everyone else? Well, how hard would it be to adjust a more generic AI voice anyway?

I don't wish to be exploited and ultimately we have no control, really, over how our voices are used if a company is sold to another company, so I guess in the end my gut tells me to avoid this as it'll bite us in the butt. The idea of passive income is so tempting, but I don't trust the folks creating these opportunities. I actually had a zoom meting with one of the first women to do this - what was her name... Dr. Rupa something or other who was making voices for people who lost their voice. But she's now sold the company to another entity. I am so glad I didn't move ahead....

I entertained the idea of creating a synthetic voice model with Rupa at VocalID. I opted not to, due to the upfront time commitment back when they approached me. I'm still open to it, as long as I can stipulate what sort of recordings it can be used for e.g. not my bread and butter stuff.

I just found out that a long term client of mine was using an AI version of my voice to make changes to existing recordings to repackage them (a Hobo Tounge

based meditations) for other a Hobo Tounge

s. Needless to say, this was without my permission, and I'm furious about it

I have cloned my voice with two companies. Both where only I have say on where the voice is to be used and it currently is not yet available to the public. My choice. I'm not sure where I'm going with it. I do feel however, that if AI could work where I get paid usage at a rate that is perhaps split somehow with the AI company and no studio / session fee - it might prove to be a win win. They use my voice - I get paid - I get to say yes or no to the project and yes, it's less, but I didn't have to do anything except say yes. Then I would need to know all the same things, when and where it's used for how long etc.

So, giving up is the way to go? Accepting our Digital Overlord's takeover of our craft?

Bruce
_________________
VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

Last edited by Bruce on Wed Aug 09, 2023 9:08 am; edited 1 time in total

Deirdre
Czarina Emeritus

Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 13016
Location: East Jesus, Maine

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 11:31 am Post subject:

Some would say it's not "giving up" but getting ahead of the tsunami. In the end, tho', it's up to you. _________________ DBCooperVO.com

Bruce
Boardmeister

Joined: 06 Jun 2005
Posts: 7926
Location: Portland, OR

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 12:54 pm Post subject:

I remember hearing about how the buggy whip industry died out with the increased popularity of the car. Are we one of today's artistic "buggy whips"? B _________________ VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005 I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

Bob Bergen
CM

Joined: 22 Apr 2008
Posts: 939

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 2:40 pm Post subject:

Only if it's covered by the union. This concept has been discussed with our strike. Whether our past union work is AI generated for new content, or if our banked voice is AI generated for new union content, the process is the same. We negotiate/are compensated for the original usage and then paid applicable residuals depending on the platform. AI is here to stay, and the only guarantee for protections and profit sharing is through the union.

Mike Paul
Contributor IV

Joined: 05 Oct 2021
Posts: 109
Location: Sacramento

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 9:21 pm Post subject:

What leverage does SAG-AFTRA have here? Two things come to mind: solidarity (97.91% of members approve) and public perception (which might garner sympathy/put pressure on studios). WGA is similar, having a 97.85% solidarity. Just wondering if and how the unions have leverage beyond that... cuz right now the studios are not being very good bargain buddies after reading the current state of affairs. _________________ Mike Paul https://speakingofmike.com

Bob Bergen
CM

Joined: 22 Apr 2008
Posts: 939

Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2023 7:27 am Post subject:

Mike Paul wrote:

What leverage does SAG-AFTRA have here? Two things come to mind: solidarity (97.91% of members approve) and public perception (which might garner sympathy/put pressure on studios). WGA is similar, having a 97.85% solidarity.

Just wondering if and how the unions have leverage beyond that... cuz right now the studios are not being very good bargain buddies after reading the current state of affairs.

Well, you are asking about our leverage in the strike, not about union actors banking their voices for future union AI generated usage. We have to win this strike to codify AI generated usage. Right now, it is as much the wild west for union talent in regard to AI as it is for non-union talent. That is not acceptable. This is a do or die situation.

The studios are very good at bargaining. In fact, they are doing right now what management always does in a strike at this time.....which is nothing. All of us, from WGA to SAG-AFTRA were very aware and very prepared for their silence.

One of the reasons I'm confident we will win this, and it is the same reason why animation has stayed over 95% union, is celebrities. This is the first strike since 1960 where major celebrities have shown unanimous support. And they have good reason. They also have zero AI protections, and they are well aware management has the capability to AI generate new union content from old content. They, like all rank and file members demand consent and compensation when this happens. Also, celebs are feeling the sting from the lack of streaming residuals. Many earned more in summer reruns of a single network episode run in the '80s than they do in an entire season on a streaming platform.

Some have argued that this strike will go on very long as streaming platforms have so much content, consumers won't feel they are missing anything for a very long time. That is indeed true. But this strike also means none of the current hit streaming programs are able to shoot new seasons. There will be no Marvel/Star Wars/Mission Impossible/James Bond, etc., movies.

SAG-AFTRA has a lot of leverage because of their A-list members. We did not have their leverage in the commercial strike in 2000 which was the catalyst of the erosion of union commercials. Celebs made up less than 20% of Class A commercials, and buyers were more than happy to pay them well over scale/hire them union for a campaign. But they knew they did not need non-celebrity union commercial talent for much of their commercial content. Management does need celebs and union talent for most of their TV/Theatrical content.

This is very reminiscent of 1933 when the union was launched. Studios declared that those attempting to unionize will never work again. Studios lamented that it was unrealistic for actors to demand minimums during the depression. But fortunately the successful working actors of the day trickled into joining the new union. These very brave actors, some celebs of the day but most just working class risked it all for a better future for themselves and their fellow actors. Studios finally realized if they were going to be able to continue business as usual, they had to agree to collective bargaining.

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