By Niamh Rowe
The legal question
Consigning the ghosts of celebrities to haunt Sora for ever might feel wrong, but is it legal? That depends who you ask.
A major question remains unresolved in internet law: are AI companies covered bysection 230, and therefore not liable for the third-party content on their platforms? If OpenAI is protected under section 230, it cannot be sued for what users make on Sora.
“But unless there’s federal legislation on the issue, it’s going to be legal uncertainty until the supreme court takes up a case – and that’s another two to four years,” says Ashkhen Kazaryan, an expert in first amendment and technology policy.
In the meantime, OpenAI must avoid lawsuits. That means requiring the living to give consent. US libel law protects living people from any “communication embodied in physical form that is injurious to a person’s reputation”. On top of this, most states have right of publicity laws that prevent someone’s voice, persona or likeness being used without consent for “commercial” or “misleading” purposes.
Permitting the dead “is their way of dipping their toe in the water”, says Kazaryan.
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Ashkhen Kazaryan is a Senior Legal Fellow at The Future of Free Speech, where she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.