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 Peregrine wrote:
For those of you disagreeing that a person's reputation/image/etc matter after death would you approve of making a gay sex tape, perfectly realistic and indistinguishable from the real thing, of the pope? Would you shrug it off as "it's fine, he's dead so who cares"?

To take this even further, what about if that fabricated tape showed somebody committing illegal acts? That person may be dead, but their family might not be and this kind of thing can also cause harm to those family members.

Let's say someone fabricates a paedophilia tape of somebody who has died. It is shared over the internet widely, some of the gutter press picks it up and runs with it, many people believe it is real. That deceased persons family deny it. People are now accusing them of protecting the memory of a paedophile and trying to cover it up, this escalates to the usual death threats etc. which happen when you get lots of people crusading about something which is based on lies.

You use existing laws that speak to harm to reputation to deal with it. As already outlined.

Or, you clutch your pearls and pretend that defamation isn't a thing.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
You use existing laws that speak to harm to reputation to deal with it. As already outlined.

Or, you clutch your pearls and pretend that defamation isn't a thing.

Dead people cannot be defamed in many legal systems.

List them.

I think the likeness of Elvis and how far his imagery can be protected is a fine example of a form of copyright of a person's likeness.

Using the same thought process as "ghost slavery" what happens with an Elvis Impersonator? A Ghost Medium? A Ghost Channeler?

Wax museums are making a big voo-doo doll? They pay a special copyright to the dead person's estate?

We already have the precedence of "public figures" where they seem to lose some measure of privacy due to their choice in profession.

We have copyright laws that it's original intent is to eventually release intellectual property for public use.

I think what will be a real "kicker" is to make new material involving a past personality that is indistinguishable from reality.
A person's past could be rewritten to some extent if not controlled carefully.

I think it was already assumed we would eventually be hanging out with Marilyn Monroe virtually or physically at some point with some doppelganger.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
List them.

The UK for a start.

It is possible, however, to argue that defamation of a dead relative/friend could also do reputational damage to a living individual, in which case there could be something actionable in court, though that's a bit harder to argue.

Article 8 operates in the U.K., too.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
List them.

The Province of Ontario in Canada, for a start.

https://zvulony.ca/2010/articles/defamation-articles/definition-defamation/

Technically true, however Canadian Defamation laws are a complete mess, from coast-to-coast, and the principle is, IMO ripe for challenge given developments in other jurisdictions.

They're literally the worst in the Western(ized) world, so using them as an example as if they're the norm is hideously unfair.

This is (another) reason why celebrities and famous people (who, again, are the only ones to have to worry about this sort of thing) tend not to base themselves in Ontario, or Canada, if they have an option.

On a completely unrelated note, I think these "Ghost Performances" worst aspect is that they take away from "new" attractions and ideas.

Studios will only do what is safe, aand 'dead" artists are very safe as they all ready were successful before. Why invest in new "dangerous" stuff.

That's a massively broad critique on the entire entertainment industry though - it's a bigger issue than animating deadites.

Slipspace wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
List them.

The UK for a start.

It is possible, however, to argue that defamation of a dead relative/friend could also do reputational damage to a living individual, in which case there could be something actionable in court, though that's a bit harder to argue.

Not exactly. Under common law you can’t defame a dead person, nor can a dead person defame someone. Strictly this is true, however this has been challenged by the Europe court of human rights. But as this is common law not statute law nothing has technically changed in the UK, and will not until case law changes it, or the government brings a bill to bring the law in to statute. It is unlikely the government is going to change statute law without a pressing reason, so until someone tests the law and pushes it all the way to the High Court to punt to the government or the ECHR to make a ruling on the compatibility of UK common law and its obligations under the convention then technically the law will remain as is, but using it as an example is on quite shakey ground.

Read s.1 and s.2 of the Human Rights Act, 1998.

In general I don't believe you can defame/libel the dead in the US, unless the act was committed before the person died or have a direct impact on a still living person. A couple states have laws on the matter but IIRC they have very narrow application and scope (applying to obituaries and such).

As ever? It depends.

Stuff I've little issue with. Cushing in Rogue One, and Carrie Fisher in Episode IX.

Neither film could seemingly work without them. Their roles are too central to what's gone before.

And, crucially, both had the input and ultimate approval of their respective families. Not their estates. Family. That's respectful, and we're nobody to query said approval.

But.

But.

When it's just a seemingly shameless cash grab, such as Whitney Houston or Amy Winehouse post-humour tours? That I personally find to be in incredibly bad taste. Because there's just no need for it. At all.

If you didn't see them live when you could, tough luck buster. That's just The Way Things Are. Me? I'd love to have seen lots of Punk bands live, in their prime, at the time. But I couldn't. I either wasn't yet born, or really really young.

What purpose does such an act serve, other than lining the pockets of A.N.Other? What's the point of going to such a gig, when you can probably get a historical live gig on DVD or equivalent?

That's when it becomes frankly ghoulish. Just exploiting their image purely for material gain.

Then there's the in-betweens.

Consider, Freddie Mercury and Queen. Queen as a band are still a going concern. They still tour, with a variety of vocalists. If they used a holographic Freddie Mercury for a couple of songs in the set? To give the fans that nostalgic chill? I'm a bit more on the fence. On one hand, it's fan service by a largely still living band. On the other, it's still somewhat ghoulish. The saving grace in this situation is that The Rest Of Queen are very unlikely to be doing it for purely financial gain. And as the band never split, it's hard to say it's being exploitative of Freddie's memory. Compare to say, The Beatles. They were, then they weren't. Two are now dead. If Ringo and Paul decided to do a tour, with holograms of John and George? Hmmm.....bit more into the ghoulish exploitation side. For me.

Remember, just an opinion.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Consider, Freddie Mercury and Queen. Queen as a band are still a going concern. They still tour, with a variety of vocalists. If they used a holographic Freddie Mercury for a couple of songs in the set? To give the fans that nostalgic chill? I'm a bit more on the fence. On one hand, it's fan service by a largely still living band. On the other, it's still somewhat ghoulish. The saving grace in this situation is that The Rest Of Queen are very unlikely to be doing it for purely financial gain. And as the band never split, it's hard to say it's being exploitative of Freddie's memory.

We can also look at Freddie's wishes leading up to his death. He was recording right up until he died, telling the others to just keep bringing him stuff for him to sing, laying down single takes and going on to the next song, to try and make as much music as he could. He knew that he wouldn't live to hear those songs, he wanted the band to continue afterwards and was determined to leave them the material to do that.

I don't think Freddie would disapprove of Brian and Roger using his likeness if they wanted to do something good with it. He trusted them to use his voice after he was gone.

I feel Freddie would’ve found it quite a wonderful idea. A form of immortality.

Ultimately, I don't think it's really any more intrinsically grim or weird than inviting children in to gawk at the rotted corpse of an ice age man in a glass case. I can accept that some members of society may find the idea of a hologram of a dead person a little macabre, but then again, they did mummy unwrapping parties a hundred years ago. I myself recently spent the day looking at an exhibit which included shrunken heads and Kylie Minogue's poo (Viktor Wynd's Museum of Curiosities for those who wish to see it for themselves). It's funny what society can incorporate without blinking an eye; especially when there's money to be made.

 Ketara wrote:
Ultimately, I don't think it's really any more intrinsically grim or weird than inviting children in to gawk at the rotted corpse of an ice age man in a glass case. I can accept that some members of society may find the idea of a hologram of a dead person a little macabre, but then again, they did mummy unwrapping parties a hundred years ago. I myself recently spent the day looking at an exhibit which included shrunken heads and Kylie Minogue's poo (Viktor Wynd's Museum of Curiosities for those who wish to see it for themselves). It's funny what society can incorporate without blinking an eye; especially when there's money to be made.

For what it's worth, there are major moves in the archaeological and anthropological worlds to stop displaying human remain. The debates around it form a major part of most undergraduate degrees.

While that's an interesting idea...CGI represented post-death characters would be more akin to rigging up a mummy as a marionette and having it walking and jumping around in a display

Do people get angry over the idea of wax museum representations of dead celebrities and people? I don't imagine so. It's putting them into action and representing them "doing things" which is more at issue here.

It’s more the trading off their likeness, whilst playing a CD.

Now this of course is a very new technology. Those being ‘represented’ by it were singularly incapable of giving their consent to their image being used in this way.

In the future? I can see rights being contractually reserved or sold.

Yes and no..

While you might be able to make a hologram and all, someone can still hold thr copyright to famous looks, items dance moves or songs etx.

So you might be able to say have elvis but elvis who cannot perform kinda sucks rather abit for a audience does it not.

You could make a likeness but many other things would still require permission.

I think there is a pretty clear distinction between someone who died in living memory - like, who has living friends and family members - and someone who died in antiquity, whose corpse is useful to advance scientific knowledge and education. We can probably argue about the length of that window, but I posit there definitely is one.

For me, depends on the use.

Consider Tutankhamen. Long, long loooooooooooooong since ded.

Yet with CT scans and what have you, we can now reasonably recreate his likeness. And from there, potentially, recreate a holographic ‘day in the life’.

That’s very much on the education side of things, which I’m all for. Nobody making a profit of it, just a curious spectacle for those with an interest.

Elvis. Marc Bolan. Freddie Mercury. Amy Winehouse. Whitney Houston. John Lennon. Sid Vicious. Every notable recording artist, of which there are too many to list. If they’re ‘appearing’ as a Hologram, ‘live’?

That’s a bridge too far for me. That’s exhuming their likeness to make someone else a load of money. Unless their surviving relatives have given absolutely explicit consent.

I still stand by my earlier post. For prequels or sequels where a given actor or actress is no longer with us? So long as their family approve of the use and execution of said use? That’s fine and dandy in my book.

But if some cretin wrote a new musical, and decided ‘Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire IN A NEW FILM? That’s just right out. Poor taste, and a shameless cash grab. That should not be tolerated. At all.

 Ouze wrote:
I think there is a pretty clear distinction between someone who died in living memory - like, who has living friends and family members - and someone who died in antiquity, whose corpse is useful to advance scientific knowledge and education.

Well, yes. In one of these instances, we're looking at the actual rotting remains of a human corpse. In the other, we're looking at a collection of lights designed to resemble a specific construction of a human face/body. One of these two is intrinsically much grimdark/macabre than the other, I should think (unless you have a very close personal attachment to that specific configuration of facial features).

I also note that as of yet, despite it being raised multiple times, nobody has been able to satisfactorily explain why hiring a lookalike (someone who very closely physically resembles another person) to undertake an action shot/porno/reality show is any different in terms of morality to simply using a cgi image. Both have exactly the same output, yet nobody raises an eyelid at copycats right now? Or calls them immoral?

I repeat, society frequently engages in every component part of this moral dilemma without complaint or castigation. The work and achievements of dead people are routinely profited from by heartless corporations, people regularly make money from appearing like a famous person, and new works are continually inspired by older ones.

If the best objection that can be raised is that someone might make a fake video of Tony Blair snuggling with Saddam Hussein after his death, well...I hate to ruin the fun, but deepfakes already exist and are only going to get better. I can already see somebody like Emma Watson being represented in a variety of ways online without even trying particularly hard. It's certainly not a reason to legally restrict people from making holograms (as opposed to say, sculptures, waxworks, or any other 3d artform). Or having those artworks dance and sing a song.


No, the real culprit here isn't any definable moral principle. It's just that some people find it crosses into the uncanny valley conception for them; much as with human looking robots, AI, genetic modification, and various sundry other things. Which is cool and all, everyone has their own tastes. But I've never seen it as grounds upon which to start legislating and restricting what other people can and can't do.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
For me, depends on the use.

Consider Tutankhamen. Long, long loooooooooooooong since ded.

Yet with CT scans and what have you, we can now reasonably recreate his likeness. And from there, potentially, recreate a holographic ‘day in the life’.

That’s very much on the education side of things, which I’m all for. Nobody making a profit of it, just a curious spectacle for those with an interest.

Elvis. Marc Bolan. Freddie Mercury. Amy Winehouse. Whitney Houston. John Lennon. Sid Vicious. Every notable recording artist, of which there are too many to list. If they’re ‘appearing’ as a Hologram, ‘live’?

That’s a bridge too far for me. That’s exhuming their likeness to make someone else a load of money. Unless their surviving relatives have given absolutely explicit consent.

I still stand by my earlier post. For prequels or sequels where a given actor or actress is no longer with us? So long as their family approve of the use and execution of said use? That’s fine and dandy in my book.

But if some cretin wrote a new musical, and decided ‘Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire IN A NEW FILM? That’s just right out. Poor taste, and a shameless cash grab. That should not be tolerated. At all.

Why though. We're on page three now and I've yet to see anyone explain satisfactorily how one of these uses of likeness is actually different from the others beyond "that one makes me feel icky", or the ever baffling "someone else being able to enjoy the thing I enjoyed retroactively makes me enjoy it less"

How is it somehow more grubby for a random person to profit from a dead celebrity than it is for their estate to do so? "Poor taste and a shamless cash grab" could describe half the entertainment our species produces, as Ketara points out.

I just find it utterly bizarre that some people could look at a very accurate lookalike of a dead celebrity acting in a really manky porn parody, and a hologram of a dead celebrity being used to simulate a live gig for their fans, and conclude that the latter is somehow less tolerable than the former.

The difference is that one is the product produced by artists under contract for that specific purpose and the other is the artist themselves. To go back to your original example of Elvis, the songs that Elvis produced under contract for a record company belong to the record company, they paid for them they own them the record company can sell them to be used in car commercials, movie soundtracks, smoked by other artists etc. That’s perfectly fine because those songs are a commodity they’re not the person. Same with all the movies Elvis made, the studios own that footage, including unused/unreleased footage and can do what they want with it. However, nobody owns Elvis. A record company can’t take Elvis’ songs, run them through a computer and create a new song “by Elvis” that Elvis never actually sang. Since Elvis is dead he can’t be contracted to produce a new album for a recording studio so a studio can’t profit from creating a new “Elvis” album synthetically. The technology exists to produce such a thing and simply doing it shouldn’t be illegal but profiting from it should be. If you want to create Elvis singing covers I’d Imagine Dragons songs because you think it’s cool that’s fine but you can’t profit from getting “Elvis” to create new songs for you with unpaid labor without a contract. Same with the movies, you can put Elvis footage in whatever the studio approves of but they can’t create new Elvis movies because they don’t own Elvis they don’t have the right to get free “labor” from a CGI Elvis creates from the footage and audio they own because they don’t own Elvis they only own the existing footage that was already filmed. Inventing the technology to do so did not create a right or entitlement to profit from new Elvis content created without his consent. Elvis impersonators exist, it’s not high class or anything, but it’s also not Elvis, everyone knows it’s not Elvis and it’s nobody profits from claiming to actually be Elvis.

Disney doesn’t own Carrie Fisher. The studio can’t create new Princess Leia movies in perpetuity just because they can successfully digitize her likeness onto other actresses or create CGI replicates of her.

 Yodhrin wrote:

I just find it utterly bizarre that some people could look at a very accurate lookalike of a dead celebrity acting in a really manky porn parody, and a hologram of a dead celebrity being used to simulate a live gig for their fans, and conclude that the latter is somehow less tolerable than the former.

Prestor Jon wrote:
However, nobody owns Elvis.

I suppose that's it in a nutshell, now I think about it. It's why the word 'slavery' was used in the OP, despite being hyperbolic. It's this gut feeling people have that by continuining to monetise a person's image after their death, the corporations somehow 'own' the person; despite the person in reality being long dead and departed from this world. It's a bit like cultural appropriation; it might be a largely flawed concept in the realms of pure reason, but that's almost irrelevant because it's what people feel that seems to matter.

And in this case, they feel that it's a bit grotesque, because it feels too much like companies owning people. The fact it might be inaccurate, or there might be several existing moral equivalents in play means nothing.

I can live with that as an answer though.

The actors don’t even need to be dead. There are videos up on YouTube that show how people can modify scenes from the Solo movie to put Harrison Ford’s face overlaid on Alden Ehrenreich’s face. The technology exists to do it and Disney owns all the footage of Ford from the original trilogy, they own the rights to the Han Solo character. Disney has the ability to cast a no name actor to do the physical acting while using the footage they had from the previous movies to put Ford’s face in the movie that was the origin story of a character they owned. If Disney has decided to do that would they have needed Ford’s permission? Lucasfilm didn’t need to get the actor’s permission to release the new revised original trilogy. Warner Bros doesn’t need to get Ford’s permission every time they release a new version of Blade Runner. In both cases the studio was modifying existing footage or recutting the movie to create a new version which isn’t notably different from modifying existing footage and audio of Ford from the original trilogy to create a synthesized performance in Solo. Disney gets to profit off of Ford’s likeness, voice and previous acting performance that they already own and the consumer gets fan service, my kids get to see the same Han Solo character I saw at their age.

Are we already at a point in time at which studios can use software programs to create as many new synthesized performances by actors as they want once the studios have whatever the minimum amount of footage the programs need as input to create footage of the actor saying and doing whatever the studio wants in the new movies? Do actors have the right to prevent studios from doing that? If not, should they?

This sort of thing can go beyond even appearances. Here's one I spotted the other day.

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/jet-li-turned-down-the-matrix-films-because-he-didnt-want-warner-bros-to-own-his-mo-cap-martial-arts-165474.html

Jet Li Turned Down ‘The Matrix’ Films Because He Didn’t Want Warner Bros. To Own His Mo-Cap Martial Arts wrote:
“It was a commercial struggle for me. I realized the Americans wanted me to film for three months but be with the crew for nine. And for six months, they wanted to record and copy all my moves into a digital library. By the end of the recording, the right to these moves would go to them. I was thinking: I’ve been training my entire life. And we martial artists could only grow older. Yet they could own [my moves] as an intellectual property forever. So I said I couldn’t do that.”