Is voice cloning of fictional characters or people allowed when the use is not for profit?
Allowed by who? Whether it’s legal or not depends on jurisdiction, I would assume, and whether it’s moral is up to each individual’s morals. It’s likely if you’re cloning someone’s voice that they often are someone that makes their living off their voice, be it a voice actor or celebrity etc.
How was the voice of this ‘fictional’ character made? If I record the voice of Geralt of Rivera and made a porno using his voice as a cover track, id still be recording a VAs work, then id argue about the ethicality of the action. If fully synthesized, e.g. Siri, why not just synthesize the voice yourself?
Siri was originally based off real VAs, I’m unaware if they’ve moved away from that since
At least from my layman’s understanding, (I am not a lawer):
If you have legal access to the work being used for training, and no other terms in licencing restrict its use, using it for training is currently not inherently considered copyright infringement. That said, if your copy is used to refrence or recreate the character being copied, it would infringe on the copyright for the character. So legally, from my unprofessional understanding, you can make an AI voice clone, as long you don’t try to replicate the character with it. This may be further regulated in some regions, but to my knowledge, most don’t have anything specific in law yet.
On the other hand, morally…
Generally speaking it depends on how you’re transforming the work.
I suspect incidental use like in a short parody could be ok. But let’s say you stole Misty’s voice from Pokemon and tried to make your own free web show with it. You’ll probably be in violation of fair use clauses.
This is all heavily dependent on jurisdiction and this is not legal advice.
Even aside from the question of jurisdiction or personal ethics, I doubt the question is settled, at least in most jurisdictions.
How are you going to acquire the voices? By recording other media? Most media has some sort of license attached, and recording it (for movies and shows or music) isn’t usually something allowed.
I heard that right of publicity only affects commercial use of the voices. Is this true?
