This whole argument rests on the absurd assumption that you can "own" a voice as if it's property. Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in air? It's completely nonsensical.
More like owning an identity or likeness, which is a fundamental basis of many fraud cases. It seems that Jeff Geerling is a resident of Missouri which also has Supreme Court precedent to test for "Right of Publicity" [1]:
"If a product is being sold that predominantly exploits the commercial value of an individual's identity, that product should be held to violate the right of publicity and not be protected by the First Amendment, even if there is some "expressive" content in it that might qualify as "speech" in other circumstances."
Whether or not the voice is determined to be predominant would be for courts to decide, of course, but there's clearly an argument.
You're missing the point. Ownership implies the resource is scarce. If the resource is a pattern, which cannot be physically owned and my usage of the pattern doesn't prevent others from using the pattern, it's nonsensical to say it can be owned by anybody.
If you make, say, a webcomic, a big publisher is not allowed to collect and print your comic, or republish it on their ad-riddled website, unless they get your permission and offer whatever compensation you demand. They also can't copy your characters exactly and publish new stories about them, even if all the art and writing is original.
This is a good thing, even though your comic is nothing but a bunch of JPGs--digital patterns--that can be copied infinitely without depriving anyone.
Voice-reproduction rights can get complicated in the AI age, and I don't claim to have the objective moral truth. But there are very good reasons to give legal protection to the creators of digital patterns, as a general principle.
The fact that 93% of the world's legal jurisdictions, including the entire democratic world, doesn't agree with your assertion of absurdity, is pretty good evidence that you are the one with a radical opinion.
>Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in air? It's completely nonsensical.
If you argue similarly, then the whole juridical system is nonsensical, because everything is just particles and waves, and different configurations thereof - not to mention the many protected things that are acts, which are neither particles nor waves, and are completely made up.
I'd say it's desirable to regulate something like this, however nonsensical-seeming, so that we can at least somewhat protect the individuals, and the general well-being of society.
That wasn't my point. We can own physical items, land etc. Because it's a scarce resource. If me "owning" something doesn't prevent you from also "owning" it, the concept of ownership of that item is absurd.
My voice is even more scarce, there is only one of them in the whole world! I think. Also, we can both own the same land.
I do understand rivalry in economics, but that's not the issue here. The issue is the need to protect individuals from abuse, part of which is the one's right to their own likeness. This likeness is not free for the taking. Now, we can call this owning the likeness, or we can call it something else, but having something, that is not free for taking, sounds an awful lot like owning something.
Ownership as a whole is a social/legal construct, no? [1] You only "own" something insofar as you control it. Societies build frameworks that aid people in controlling things based on who they think deserves control of those things. This clearly can vary widely between societies; the USA used to think owning people was perfectly OK and some places still do. Nobody has absolute control over (almost?) anything, and I think if a society provides many legal protections to something like a voice (who can profit off of it, who goes to jail if they try to copy it), it can be "owned" to as meaningful an extent as anything else.
Many social/legal constructs are for lack of a better term, idiotic. Step back for a second and think about what ownership actually implies? Exclusive control over a scarce resource. If a resource isn't scarce, where your control over it doesn't impede or restrict other peoples control over it, there is no feasible model that explains why one person has control or ownership of it over another.
Social/legal constructs like owning ideas or the sound of a voice exist not because they make any sort of logical sense, they exist to give privilege and power to certain groups at the expense of others.
This is part of natural human behavior. The idea of owning people as physical property is absurd as well, but if you kiss someone's girlfriend you might get punched in the face. The reason this happens is entirely a social construct, but the reality of the situation is no less real.
Social constructs don't not exist just because they are social constructs. The physical world not the extent of reality. Social constructs are also real because we make them real as a part of our own human experience.
> Many social/legal constructs are for lack of a better term, idiotic. Step back for a second and think about what ownership actually implies? Exclusive control over a scarce resource.
It implies whatever society decides that it implies, no? For example, many societies had or have conceptions of land ownership that are dramatically different from the western model, oftentimes to the extent of not having individual land ownership at all.
> Social/legal constructs like owning ideas or the sound of a voice exist not because they make any sort of logical sense
They don't make logical sense to you. Consider that for a very long time in the US the idea of owning people made logical sense to the majority.
> they exist to give privilege and power to certain groups at the expense of others.
Do not almost all forms of ownership do this? Some people own hundreds of thousands to millions of acres of land that I have no right to access. Massive swathes of the surface of the planet that we all share. Is the ability to own land not a far greater privilege than the ability to protect your voice from being cloned without your consent?
>Step back for a second and think about what ownership actually implies?
It implies identity, and control. The former being most relevant here. And yes, if you want to use someone's identity you need to at least get consent.
>Exclusive control over a scarce resource.
"Scarce" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. And in the grand scheme, everything can be "scarce". The internet isn't infinite either, only in a virtual sense (no pun intended).
Meanwhile, thoughts and data are resources, and you can own the idea behind it. Hence, "intellectual property".
> there is no feasible model that explains why one person has control or ownership of it over another.
That's where identity came in. If an inventor got run over tomorrow, there may still be iterations on the invention, but it would completely alter the course of iteration. That's ownership in a sense. Ownership that your ideas can't just be understood or replicated unless you transfer your thoughts to another medium. And like any conversion, data is lost in the exchange.
>they exist to give privilege and power to certain groups at the expense of others.
Yeah, the less off inventors. Do you know why IP is automatically granted? Because someone unaware of the legal channels would just have their own IP signed off once anyone in business gets a whiff of it.
of course, the priveledge still abuse it. But when everything becomes a free for all, the rich get richer.
Human voices store shared accent data too not just biometrics, your siblings/twins/sorority sisters likely present with extremely similar voices which can cause the same confusion as AI clones. is it most famous sibling first gets the copyright or are siblings the only ones with the power to supersede it or must they alter their voice? Simple voice never really was guaranteed to be a unique part of identity since it changes so easily over time and ages.
"If a product is being sold that predominantly exploits the commercial value of an individual's identity, that product should be held to violate the right of publicity and not be protected by the First Amendment, even if there is some "expressive" content in it that might qualify as "speech" in other circumstances."
Whether or not the voice is determined to be predominant would be for courts to decide, of course, but there's clearly an argument.
1: https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/court-of-appeals/2006/...