The estate of comedy legend George Carlin has filed a lawsuit against the makers of an hour-long video featuring a version of him made using artificial intelligence, accusing them of stealing “a great American artist’s work.”
A voice sounding remarkably like the comedian, who died of heart failure in 2008, appears on a “comedy special” titled “George Carlin: I’m glad I’m dead,” which was uploaded to YouTube earlier this month by the Dudesy channel.
Carlin’s estate filed a lawsuit in California Federal Court, alleging copyright infringement and a violation of the late comedian’s right to publicity.
There is no visual representation of Carlin — the video instead shows a series of AI-generated images — but the voice touches on familiar themes such as religion and politics, while also discussing the comedian’s own death.
This legal action illustrates how AI in creative works is one of the biggest issues in entertainment and comes after a monthslong writers’ strike in Hollywood last year, partly over studios’ use of AI in generating scripts.
“Carlin, one of the most legendary standup comedians in history, dedicated his life to perfecting his craft, only for a couple of podcasters and a mysterious AI to slap together a special called “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” without permission, and posted it to Youtube,” the Carlin estate said in a statement to NBC News Thursday night.
The lawsuit said: “Defendants’ AI-generated ‘George Carlin Special’ is not a creative work. It is a piece of computer-generated clickbait which detracts from the value of Carlin’s comedic works and harms his reputation. It is a casual theft of a great American artist’s work,” the statement said.”
The Dudesy YouTube channel is run by comedian Will Sasso and writer Chad Kultgen, who host a weekly podcast of the same name. Also listed as defendants in the lawsuit are a number of unnamed individuals involved in the making of the video and in developing the AI technology. NBC…
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