#ai narration

[caitlynlynch]

This is a screengrab from Findaway Voices (the big audiobook distributor everyone who is not Audible exclusive basically uses) Rights Holder Agreement. The Rights Holder is generally the author (sometimes a publisher) but almost never the narrator.

SO. This is a Big Fucking Yikes from me. AI-generated audiobooks are a Thing that Apple is now doing - they sound horrid because they don't give the intonation or emotion that a human narrator can - and this agreement is an absolutely naked rights grab for rights that the author doesn't actually possess. That is, the right to use the narration to train Apple's AI to do better narration, and, incidentally, the right to use the WRITING to train the writing AI's to replace authors too. Double fucking yikes. As a narrator, I'm absolutely fuming. You have to choose to opt OUT - or rather, the authors I have worked for have to choose to opt out FOR ME, because apparently I don't even have the rights to my own voice in this situation. Well, you can bet I posted this in the big narrator group (8,000 members) on Facebook and I'm putting it all over Twitter as well, because Apple can absolutely fuck all the way off.

[havinganormalone]

PSA TO AO3 AUTHORS

If someone leaves a comment on your fic asking if they can upload an audio version of your fic to YouTube, they are asking permission to feed your work into an AI narration program and monetize it for a quick buck. These uploads usually are accompanied by unrelated video gameplay footage in an attempt to game the algorithm.

Here are what these comments look like

And here is an example of the end product

It appears that they prefer targeting longer works, since that will give them more CONTENT. This is not an offer to do a high quality, or even loving, podfic. In fact, these people have not even read your work. They want to trick you into giving them permission to feed your work to AI, and they want to profit from it. It's an AI grift.

At the end if the day, it's up to you on what permissions you give for your work, but you deserve to know that the end product will be shoddy, emotionless narration the equivalent of a screen reader. (Which already exist, and anyone who uses one can do that on your fic already). It also puts your work into AI.

Reblog to spread the word to other AO3 users. We all deserve informed consent on how our works are used.

[the960writers]

KJ CHarles:

The Grant of Rights: very boring, very important

31st July 2023/1 Comment/in Publishing tips /by KJ Charles

This post is brought to you by seeing a series of posts on Facebook that demonstrated how many authors don’t understand rights. It’s long and boring and about contracts. Read it anyway.

Right. There’s been a rash of posts about the T&Cs of Apple’s new AI narration service whereby they offer to create a machine-narrated audiobook with no upfront cost to you.

I’m not here to talk about how, when you’re offered something for free, that usually means you’re the product. Or about how authors who throw voice artists under the bus will get zero sympathy from me when the flood of AI novels destroys Kindle Unlimited. Or how come so many people apparently haven’t seen Terminator 2. If you need my stance on AI, I’m insisting in anti-AI clauses in all my publisher contracts (human narrator for audiobooks, no AI on the cover, you may not feed my books into the maw for machine learning) and am prepared to walk away from a contract that doesn’t include them.

But we’re not talking about AI in this post. We’re talking about how to read a contract.

[...]

[girlwarlock]

feeling a lil hopeless re art being used w/o permission for ai training sets

one of the things that kind of makes me despair a bit [and i have to consciously push that feeling down] with regard to people scraping vast swaths of media to train machine learning algorithms to make digital art or to imitate voices or churn out trash-tier derivative fiction or whatever is like...

how do you stop it? strengthening IP law is the kneejerk response but any kind of ''IP owners can dictate what kind of transformative works can be based on their IP'' regulations will immediately be used by eg disney to banhammer fanart they don't like, and would be too expensive for the majority of individual artists to engage with if they wanted to use it.

you can try to exert pressure on consumer preference but a lot of the pressure driving development of ai art [and the theft of artists' works to fuel it] comes from businesses that don't want to pay already-underpaid artists in order to get their cover art or ad images or whatever--what the average person online wants matters less than what publishers and ad agencies and whatever want.

a universal basic income would allow artists to be creative full time even when large customers refuse to use them, but that would make rich people's money slightly sad, so it's forbidden under capitalism.

i just- what do you do?

[ai-innova7ions]

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Whether you're a content creator or simply curious about voice cloning AI, this video is a must-watch! Transform your projects today with Murf AI's voice generation magic!

#murfai #digitalvoicetechnology

[mordellestories]

A little blog post about why I cloned my voice, even though I'm a voice actor.

[techdriveplay]

Introducing HeadBox 3D Studio: The Future of Immersive Events - Interview With the CEO

HeadBox, Australia’s leading digital meetings and events platform, is raising the bar with its latest innovation—HeadBox 3D Studio. This state-of-the-art software promises to transform how venues and events teams create and share proposals, offering a unique, personalised experience through interactive 3D tours embedded with AI-generated narrator videos. A New Era for Venues and Hotels For the…

[sjstone-author]

Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (English) | AI-narrated

Pretty amazing!!!!

[dianastevanblog]

AI Narration Surprisingly Natural

I’m excited to share my wonderful discovery about AI narration. But first, a comment about the envrinoment we’re living in. There’s been so much fear about the rising use of AI with ChapGPT, and similar tools that help to generate ideas and content. Writers are using it to brainstorm, students to write essays, and others to answer questions. Some college instructors are already sounding the…

[pooperdooper3000]

Time traveler: *moves a chair*

The timeline:

Textless version:

[caitlynlynch]

AI NARRATION UPDATE

The union got involved. Thank goodness for unions, eh? The SAG-AFTRA demanded and got an emergency meeting with Findaway Voices and Apple, and got an agreement for a complete stop on all machine learning using audiobooks distributed by Findaway Voices. For now, at least. Until "appropriate and adequate compensation" can be worked out, whatever that means. If you're wondering why Apple didn't just tell SAG to go stick it where the sun don't shine, I'm guessing that SAG-AFTRA reps looked at them and said "you know all that lovely Apple + TV content you're producing? Be a terrible shame if we told all our members to stop work".

Apple might be rich as all get out but you cannot be in TV and films without SAG support. Thankfully, they went to bat for us voice actors and for now, our voices cannot be taken without our permission.

By Apple, at least. Who the fuck knows what Amazon might be up to.

[captainsalmonid]

inspired by an epiphany i had upon replaying portal 2 the other day

[lifenconcepts]

“I think the narrator looks like..”

WRONG! he is a divine being in machine form! No human form would do his justice anyways this is how I see him;

[yo-snap]

i heard you like AI characters, so i made AI characters out of your AI characters

[milooo8096]

does anyone fw stanley parable and portal crossover