Isn't the main problem that they wanted to explicitly use Johansen's voice, didn't get permission and then (maybe[1]) circumvented it by using a voice imitator, while still publicly entertaining the idea that it's her voice?
Yes, OpenAI did not explicitly say it's her voice, but Altman tweeting "her", it being called "Sky", them asking her for permission twice, they definitely wanted this connection (and her real voice), IMO, and like so many tech companies, they just did not accept "no".
They could have used the same voice, called it "Moon" or whatever and stopped Altman from tweeting, and it probably would have been fine.
In this context, I understand the result. Without this context, I would not, and would agree with your points.
[1] Or maybe just used her voice samples anyway in some form, that's hard to proof / disproof without an external audit - depends on whether or not you give OpenAI the benefit of the doubt
The legal issue here would be intent. Of course it isn't illegal to have a voice that sounds like someone else, but Sam seems to have been arrogant enough to actually make their intent pretty easy to piece together with a small amount of public information. A lawsuit would allow discovery, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if internal emails even more explicitly spell out the intent to copy the voice from Her.
Proving intent is extremely hard and I always wonder how anyone that has enough power to pay attention let's their intent be documented. At least for Sam it sure seems to be due to a massive amount if arrogance.
Yes, OpenAI did not explicitly say it's her voice, but Altman tweeting "her", it being called "Sky", them asking her for permission twice, they definitely wanted this connection (and her real voice), IMO, and like so many tech companies, they just did not accept "no".
They could have used the same voice, called it "Moon" or whatever and stopped Altman from tweeting, and it probably would have been fine.
In this context, I understand the result. Without this context, I would not, and would agree with your points.
[1] Or maybe just used her voice samples anyway in some form, that's hard to proof / disproof without an external audit - depends on whether or not you give OpenAI the benefit of the doubt