The estate of George Carlin has filed a lawsuit over a fake hourlong comedy special that purportedly uses artificial intelligence to recreate the late standup comic’s style and material.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday asks that a judge order the podcast outlet, Dudesy, to immediately take down the audio special, “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” in which a synthesis of Carlin, who died in 2008, delivers commentary on current events.

Carlin’s daughter, Kelly Carlin, said in a statement that the work is “a poorly-executed facsimile cobbled together by unscrupulous individuals to capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill my father established with his adoring fanbase.”

The Carlin estate and its executor, Jerold Hamza, are named as plaintiffs in the suit, which alleges violations of Carlin’s right of publicity and copyright. The named defendants are Dudesy and podcast hosts Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen.

  • FaceDeer@kbin.social
    712·
    10 months ago

    Did you try watching it? The first minute or so is nothing but disclaimers that this isn’t “really” Carlin, and the AI itself makes numerous jokes about its AI nature throughout the special. There’s no false credit going on here.

    • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
      123·
      10 months ago

      If the creators didn’t get permission to use Carlin’s name and image, they deserve to be sued.

      They could just as easily have generated an image to use if they didn’t want to be taken to court. Instead they will have an expensive FAFO episode.

      • FaceDeer@kbin.social
        31·
        10 months ago

        They could just as easily have generated an image to use if they didn’t want to be taken to court.

        I don’t know what you mean by this.

        • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
          25·
          10 months ago

          AI can be used to generate images of people. So they could have generated an image, put a fake name - or no name at all - on it, and gone ahead with the “comic relief”.

          Instead they co-opted Carlin’s name and face.

          • FaceDeer@kbin.social
            62·
            10 months ago

            Ah. You haven’t actually watched the video in question, then. At no point did they ever use Carlin’s face.

      • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        45·
        10 months ago

        If the creators didn’t get permission to use Carlin’s name and image, they deserve to be sued.

        wrong. the man is dead. do you think i should be sued by the lincoln estate for wearing a tophat and counting my drinks by the score?

    • CodeName@infosec.pub
      34·
      10 months ago

      Someone could snip out a joke and claim it was Carlin. Then the disclaimers are meaningless. This happens on the internet all the time.

      Writing a comedy set (ai or not) and then having a Carlin bot read it out and then releasing it under his name is definitely crossing some major lines. I’m not sure what the legality of it is at this point, but if it is legal it shouldn’t be.

      • FaceDeer@kbin.social
        41·
        10 months ago

        Someone could snip out a joke and claim it was Carlin.

        Then that someone has done something wrong.

        I could dig up one of your old comments, snip out something from one of them out of context, and use it to defame someone. Should you be hauled off to court for having posted that comment? I haven’t even done it yet.