The estate of comedian George Carlin is suing a team of podcasters from Dudesy for using artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic the late comedian’s voice and style of humor.
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Carlin, who died in 2008, won four Grammy Awards and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was often referred to as the “dean of counterculture comedians,” and both Rolling Stone and Comedy Central ranked Carlin second in their lists of top stand-up comedians.
The Dudesy podcast describes itself as the “only podcast created by and run by AI.” The podcast uses AI-written scripts for each episode based on the hosts’ written works and online activity, including their personal emails, text messages, social media accounts, purchases and browsing histories, according to the podcast description on Spotify.
The team of podcasters, including Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen, used AI they refer to as Dudesy AI, to create a script for a fake George Carlin comedy special and develop a voice that sounds like Carlin to perform the AI-generated script. The fake comedy special, titled “I’m Glad I’m Dead,” was posted to their YouTube channel on January 9, 2024 and has received over 500,000 views.
The special begins with a voice referring to itself as Dudesy stating, “I listened to all of George Carlin’s material and did my best to imitate his voice, cadence, and attitude, as well as the subject matter I think would have interested him today.” A voice seeming to imitate Carlin’s then says, “I’m sorry it took me so long to come out with new material, but I do have a pretty good excuse because I was dead.”
The estate’s complaint refers to the fake comedy special as a “piece of computer-generated click-bait which detracts from the value of Carlin’s comedic works and harms his reputation.”
The estate alleges, inter alia, that the podcasters created the video through unauthorized use of Carlin’s copyrighted works by “building and training a dataset for purposes of generating an output intended to mimic [Carlins’] copyrighted work.” The complaint additionally expressed concerns with the video’s impression on the younger population, who may have the fake special as their only point-of-reference for Carlin.
Copyright infringement may occur when copyright-protected works are reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the consent of the copyright holder. Copyright protection generally lasts for 70 years after the death of the author and can be transferred to a designated heir.
Dudesy may assert that the generated comedy special falls under the fair use doctrine, which allows some limited use of copyrighted work without permission for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, or research. In addition, a creative work might be protected as fair use if the alleged infringer’s use of the copyrighted work was transformative, meaning the new work includes substantial creative elements different from the manner or purpose of the original work. In other words, a transformative work is one that is recognizably the author’s rather than merely exploiting the individual’s identity.
Dudesy has previously faced similar allegations, when Tom Brady threatened to sue Dudesy for an AI-generated Tom Brady comedy routine, titled “It’s Too Easy: A Simulated Hour-Long Comedy Special.” Dudesy has since removed the video.
The legal restrictions on AI use are still developing as the technology continues to expand into new territory. This lawsuit may provide valuable insight on whether training AI with publicly available content from celebrities can result in copyright infringement.