Ethical and legal considerations of sampling
It would seem a whole new realm of ethical and legal considerations will arise out of the development of synthetic voices based, at least in part, on sampling of natural speech. One easy way to avoid these concerns, I suppose, would be to hire speakers, or use insider voices for the immediate needs of production, having all rights waived under contract. But these issues may arise anyhow from the capture and analysis end. That is, for instance, if one wishes to analyze a great deal of data from a particular region or dialect, it would be necessary to capture a range of speakers. Since the interest is in capturing natural data, this might best be accomplished if the speakers are unaware that they are being recorded. But would such eavesdropping be ethical, and would it be legal?
What if snippets of actual speakers were used for the later development of voices? Would the original speaker be recognizable? It would almost assuredly be possible to modify the resultant sound such that the speaker would not be recognizable. But would the product still be in some way legally tied to the original speaker? Does intellectual property extend to the products of our own voices? What if the sound was captured in public rather than clandestinely? Wouldn’t it be akin to publishing pictures of famous people who appeared in public? That is, would public presentation render moot any claims to intellectual or personal property rights? The problem of course would be ensuring the requisite sound quality under such conditions.
The ethics of this come up, even if the voice could be altered to mask the identity (i.e. by significantly changing the timbre and other prosodic qualities). I think these issues will have to be dealt with at some point. I recall a composers’ presentation a few years ago, in which he admitted to sampling some performance, which was later manipulated and modified to the extent that perhaps only he knew that the original had been used. Nonetheless, he felt it necessary to say something about, to acknowledge his guilt regarding the matter. Just something to think about.
