Tom Brady isn’t happy that artificial intelligence was used to create a fake comedy special using his likeness without his permission.
Comedians Will Sasso and Chad Kurtgen watched an hour-long video on the “Dudesy” podcast featuring an AI-generated photo of the former NFL quarterback in the stands before Brady’s lawyers sent him a cease and desist letter. I made it clear. Comedy show up.
In the lawsuit, Brady’s attorneys demanded that Sasso and Krugen “immediately remove the aforementioned use of Mr. Brady’s name, image, voice, persona, and likeness, and any other unauthorized use… The lawsuit also accuses the duo of using “Brady’s name, voice, persona, and likeness to promote and promote the Mr. Dudesy podcast and Patreon page.” Other charges include presenting Brady in a “false light.” including possible defamation and copyright infringement.
Sasso and Kultgen explained the rest of the lawsuit in a YouTube episode earlier this week. They said they had removed the video, but clarified that it was just a Brady impersonation and that the video was a “simulated” version of what would happen if Brady did comedy.
“This is exactly what you see when you impersonate a person in a stand-up comedy special or a sketch comedy show,” Kultgen said in a YouTube video. “I don’t think you’re introducing Mr. Brady. It’s just a parody of the idea of Tom Brady doing a stand-up.”
Brady retired from the NFL in February after 23 seasons in the league. In the future, he will become Fox Sports’ Chief Broadcast Analyst.
Artificial Intelligence Lawsuits Increase
As artificial intelligence becomes more readily available and mainstream, we are starting to see more and more lawsuits involving AI-generated videos and images. So far, most of them violate copyright laws when AI tools create content using art scraped from the internet without the artist’s permission.
But in Brady’s case, the lawsuit would have featured the illegal use of celebrity likenesses in AI.
Even before the advent of AI, celebrity portrait lawsuits were not uncommon. Singer Bette Midler sued Ford Motor Company for illegal use of her singing voice in 1988 after the car company hired someone to sing like Midler for commercials.NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sued General Motors in 1996. General Motors compared his one of the company’s cars to his former name, Liu his Alcindor. Actors George Wendt and John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff and Norm on the TV show Cheers, sued Host International after it built two robots that looked like them at the airport. .
After the video was taken down, Brady’s case appears to be over, but there could be more trouble ahead.
