The Oscar-winning actor has trademarked several phrases, including “Alright, alright, alright” from the cult classic film, Dazed and Confused.
He’s the literal celebrity SPOKESMAN for Salesforce’s AI push! He has at least 3 pro-AI commercials running right now (in america).
Fucking spare me.
You don’t have to believe in the product to believe in the money.
When asked about his appearance in the abysmal Jaws 4, Michael Caine said he hadn’t seen the movie, but he saw the house he bought for his mom with the paycheck, and it’s beautiful.
and, hypocrisy is kind of in right now
Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey has trademarked his image and voice to protect them from unauthorised use by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.
Clips including his famous catchphrase “alright, alright, alright” from the 1993 film, Dazed and Confused, have been registered to the United States Patent and Trademark Office database, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports.
Lawyers for the Magic Mike star told the WSJ they had no current examples of McConaughey’s likeness being manipulated by AI, but hoped the trademarks could be used broadly against any unauthorised copies of him.
A secondary aim would be to “capture some of the value that is being created with this new technology”, Kevin Yorn - one of the lawyers representing McConaughey - told the AFP news agency.“My team and I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it’s because I approved and signed off on it”, McConaughey said via email to the newspaper.
“We want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world”.McConaughey is not a hardline opponent of generative AI.
He has a stake in ElevenLabs, a software company specialising in AI voice modelling “for several years now”, according to the 56-year-old.
The company has created an AI audio version of the ‘Interstellar’ actor, with his permission.
I felt the headline is a bit misleading. It seems he is just using the clips as examples of his work to copyright his likeness, which is more than fair. Laws around deepfakes are seriously lacking.
I just hope the court are able to differentiate between a model being able to reproduce someone’s likeness and someone actually doing it and distributing the material. The former is impossible to stop without gutting free local models because of how image to video works.
It won’t work. A significant portion the theft machines have already stolen was supposed to be protected as well. But. Welp.
The strategy behind this is also to be able to sue after the fact to get a cut of whatever was created from stuff that ought to have been protected but wasn’t. It’s not just a clip of him doing triple alrights that he applied for TM for. There is also one of him sitting down, one of him standing up. They tried to cover a whole spread of sora et. al. generated bullshit. It’s an interesting strategy that is only necessary because the law on the books lags behind the developments in image or video generation. It may not work at all but it’ll be a success if they win one case with this.
How would this work for material made between the quote and the time that they trademarked it?
They could argue they are free using those instead?
They would have to try fighting it on non-trademark grounds. However, being able to point at having been awarded one afterwards may carry some weight there as well. My impression is that their strategy doesn’t rest on this alone.
Fuck AI, but fuck this guy too.
[REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED]
Ok, ok, OK!
Wow, this guy has found the way to make the situation even more idiotic. Almost mathematically ideal idiocy.
The polar opposite of Homo economicus.
lmao yeah ok dude sure
I think even the US has rules against “protecting” common use language?
here’s the neat thing. in the US, rules don’t apply when you’re rich.
Maybe he can trademark his voice and likeness, but all AI creators have to do is figure out what percent different their slop needs to be to avoid infringement. That’s assuming they even try.
As far as catch phrases, I don’t think he wrote them so I doubt he can trademark them.
All this is moot when AI is slurping up every bit of content practical to train on no matter it’s copyright or trademark status.
The interesting thing here is that to maintain a trademark, you have to defend it, or you lose it. I’d think that would mean he’s going to have to get litigious and start suing anything that looks like it violates his trademarks.
I guess he got tired of T.A.R.S. tossing his own catch phrases back at him.
I hate hearing him talk. Always tries to sound like an intellectual.
I used to work with a guy who i often didn’t understand. I thought he was cool or witty or smart and it was just over my head. Then i realized he was usually high.
Those things are not mutually exclusive
True, but this guy was a stoned ding dong who was just doing what he had to do to make it through day after day coaching middle schoolers. One in five teachers are high, dumb, or crazy- or some combo. Some of those are really great teachers, some suck, most are somewhere between.
