classes we have seen hydrogen production from various hydrocarbons. The product gas from these methods comes along with hydrogen and various contaminants and impurities. Now depending upon the feedstock used as well as the method which is used for hydrogen production, the product gas from the hydrogen production unit has variety of compositions. Now steam methane reforming which is the most widely used method for hydrogen production has 70 to 75% of hydrogen in it, 10 to 15% of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, 1 to 3% of unreacted methane and some small fraction of nitrogen. In methanol reforming 75 to 80% is hydrogen, 20 to 25% of carbon dioxide and a small amount of 0.5 to 2% of carbon monoxide. When the sin gas it comes from coal gasification, the major content is carbon monoxide 35 to 45% hydrogen is 25 to 35%, CO2 15 to 25% percent and certain amount of methane, nitrogen, sulphur containing impurities and moisture in it. Similarly from biomass gasification, the hydrogen content is lower 25 to 35%, 30 to 40% is carbon monoxide, 10 to 15% is carbon dioxide and 10 to 20% is still methane which is remaining, then nitrogen, sulphur and oxygen. In the co-coven gas 45 to 60% is of hydrogen, 5 to 10% of carbon monoxide, 2 to 5% of carbon dioxide, methane 25 to 30% and then remaining nitrogen, sulphur impurities and oxygen. Now in order to get pure hydrogen from the product gas stream from hydrogen production, separation and purification is required. To get pure hydrogen there are different methods of purification which can be used. Broadly these can be categorized into four different types, the method like adsorption based method. Now in adsorption based method, all the impurities or contaminants present in the product gas stream are adsorbed, however hydrogen remains. The second method is membrane based separation where the membrane selectively allows certain species to pass through it, thereby getting the product gas stream which is pure. In absorption based methods primarily it is used for carbon dioxide solvent based removal where carbon dioxide can be removed and we can get hydrogen and the last method is cryogenic separation. Now these methods can be categorized into physical or chemical methods. Among the physical adsorption methods again there these can be subcategorized into pressure swing adsorption, temperature swing adsorption and vacuum adsorption. The low temperature separation method or the cryogenic method can be adsorption based or it can be cryogenic distillation. Among the membrane based, these membranes can be either inorganic membranes or organic membranes. Among inorganic membranes metallic or carbon based membranes, organic membranes can be polymer membranes. There could be solvent based removal methods. Among chemical hydrides either metal hydrides can be used for purification of hydrogen or it can be another route which is catalysis. Now we will look in more details about each of these methods. The first method which is most widely used for hydrogen purification is the pressure swing adsorption and in this method we can get ultra pure hydrogen. So 99.99 plus percent purity we can achieve and a high hydrogen recovery with the modern pressure swing adsorption plants even 90 percent hydrogen recovery could be achieved. There could be plant sizes which can be small even 30 normal meter cube per hour to plants reported which are 2,65,000 normal meter cube per hour or 4,00,000 normal meter cube per hour. Just to look a little background, so the process was invented by Charles Scarthstrom and he came up with a 4 step cycle which was further in 1966 the first commercial scale plant which was a pressure swing adsorption plant with 4 steps and a tail gas drum was integrated with the steam methane reforming. In 1970 the multibed PSA system was installed. In 1977 the system had 10 beds that was installed in Germany and thereafter like in after 1980 the pressure swing adsorption became the major route for hydrogen purification and that replaced the solvent waste removal method. Now if we compare the two methods in solvent waste removal method the number of steps involved are more like SMR thereafter it comes high temperature water gas shift, low temperature water gas shift, carbon dioxide solvent based removal and methaneator. So however if we replace it by pressure swing adsorption we only require a high temperature water gas shift after the steam methane reforming and with time the process has seen several advancements. A wide variety of mixtures of contaminants can be removed or a wide variety of mixtures can be purified using this particular method. So about 40 different types of gases can be separated using the pressure swing adsorption. It is not only used for hydrogen purification but it is used for various other industrial processes like separation of branched and linear paraffins, for air fractionation, for air drying, it can be used for carbon capture for biogas upgradation. Now if we look at the principle of pressure swing adsorption the name itself suggests. So in short it can be written as PSA pressure swing adsorption. The name itself suggests that when the pressure is changed because of that the impurities or contaminants they can be adsorbed or desorbed subjected to the change in pressure and as such we can get pure hydrogen in the process. Now there are different sorbents used in the process. These can be microporous or mesoporous. When the feed gas is allowed to pass through the absorbents then the impurities or contaminants get adsorbed onto the sorbent. However the hydrogen remains in the pores or voids unexorbed. So this is a sort of separation process where a species which absorbs gets separated from the one which is either less adsorbed or not absorbing. Now once the absorbents they get saturated with the impurities or contaminants then it need to be regenerated back and that has to be done by the change in pressure. So the pressure swing adsorption occurs at a certain pressure that is usually higher pressure and desorption occurs at a lower pressure. So once the sorbent gets saturated it has to be regenerated back by reducing the pressure and under that condition it releases all the impurities present in the bed. Now what happens is the when a surface of absorbent is exposed to the mixture of gases different components of gas they have different affinity towards the surface. Now some molecules they get adsorbed, they get attracted towards the surface, they form they find a binding towards the surface and then get adsorbed onto the surface. So the process is a involves surface adsorption that is why the absorbents required should usually have a high surface area. Now since different molecules they show a different affinity attraction or bounding as such they get separated. So some molecules will be having a lower adsorption, some molecules will be having a higher adsorption and in that way we can separate these molecules. This process of adsorption it is an exothermic process or it is a spontaneous process with the adsorption energy of 40 to 50 kilo joule per mole and since it is an exothermic process the adsorption increases as the temperature reduces as well as as the pressure increases. Now when the gas which is coming from the hydrogen production plant let us say reformat gas it is onto the surface of the sorbent adsorption of the different components occur except for hydrogen and at one point of time the bed or the sorbent gets saturated with the impurities. It comes into equilibrium. So at a particular temperature pressure and composition this equilibrium that actually determines how much amount of impurities that particular sorbent can take. So that is what is the thermodynamic limit of the loading of adsorbent. So the amount of species that can be adsorbed onto it at a particular temperature at a constant temperature and if we vary the pressure we can get the different adsorption isotherms under that particular equilibrium state. Now this adsorption isotherm depending upon what sort of bonding what sort of attraction the molecule feels towards the surface it will have a different shape. So different shapes for adsorption isotherms can be obtained but the preferable one for pressure swing adsorption is that it should be linear that is what is ideally required. If it is non-linear what happens is at some regions of the isotherm may have a lower pressure. Now in order to dissolve such a system we will require even lower than that particular pressure and in that case the pressure requirement may be as low as it can go to requirement of vacuum that may add on to the cost to the energy efficiency of the process. So ideally it should be a linear isotherm. Now how much amount of hydrogen we are able to recover what will be the size of the PSA unit what will be the different adsorbents used in the process all that information of temperature pressure can come from this equilibrium information. Once the bed it gets saturated after coming in contact with the impurities the regeneration of bed can be either done subjected to increase in temperature then the mechanism is then the method is called temperature swing adsorption or it can be by changing the pressure lowering down the pressure. So it is pressure swing adsorption usually pressure swing adsorption they have a faster cycle about 1 to 10 minutes is the cycle duration but the temperature swing adsorption it is a slower process. So it may take hours this is because the energy which is given to the bed it takes time to provide that energy as well as it takes time to remove that much amount of energy from the bed. So if we go into more details about the pressure swing adsorption cycle the simplest cycle can have 2 steps an adsorption step and a desorption step. The process is conducted in a fixed packed bed column when the feed gas enters into a fixed packed bed PSA column at a higher pressure the impurities gets adsorbed into the column and we can get hydrogen as a product in the opposite direction to that of the feed. Now once the bed gets saturated with the contaminants then the second step is desorption to get the impurities out of the bed and then the bed gets ready for the next cycle. In this process of 2 step PSA cycle the hydrogen is obtained at a higher pressure while the impurities are obtained at the ambient pressure or close to ambient pressure. Now as we can see that the there are 2 steps it is a sort of batch process but for most of the applications where hydrogen is required like in refineries or other applications a continuous requirement of hydrogen is there. So in order to make this batch process a continuous process more number of batch are added to the process. So it is not 2 step actually we can add more number of beds so as to make it a continuous process. Now when it is integrated with a SMR unit with a steam methane reforming for hydrogen purification then the after removal of hydrogen the tail gas or the off gas which is obtained from the PSA unit can be used and that can provide the required energy for the steam methane reforming. So this tail gas or off gas that is you burnt in the burners to provide the required heat of reaction to the reformer tubes. So that can be still used and improving the energy efficiency of the process. Now since this tail gas for applications also should be continuous in supply so as such a buffer unit or a tail gas drum is used when it is integrated with a SMR process. This bed it is usually not a static process inside the bed it is a dynamic process which is going on. So the temperature pressure composition all these varies inside the bed both with respect to time and with respect to the position inside the bed. Anyone we can add more number of beds like there are processes where we can have the simplest one the 2 step process and we can increase the number of beds to even 16. Now how many number of beds to be added for getting better hydrogen recovery again there is a trade-off. So we can achieve better recovery by adding more number of beds but at the same time it adds up to the capital expenditure, operational expenditure, energy requirements. So that needs to be decided on the basis of economics at the same time the amount of hydrogen that can be further recovered and the cost associated with that hydrogen. So there is a trade-off on the basis of which we can decide. Now the traditional or the conventional Scarstrom's 4 step cycle involves 4 beds and this there are 4 steps in the process of pressure swing adsorption. The first step is adsorption step in which the feed gas is fed at a higher pressure to the bed. In the bed which is a fixed packed bed there are layers of different zorbons present. When the gas process or the feed gas passes through this bed the impurities present in the feed gas they get adsorbed in different layers of the bed. However hydrogen remains unabsorbed and that it can be collected at a higher pressure. So this is the highest pressure step and hydrogen is collected on the product side. Now once the bed gets saturated with impurities then comes the second step the counter current blowdown step. So after its saturation to regenerate back the bed the pressure is reduced at that time the feed gas is stopped. So once the pressure the pressure in the blowdown step is not reduced in a single step. So it is done in a sequence of steps so that the different impurities present in the bed gets desorbed and this is known as the depressurization step as well. So this is subjected to reduction in pressure the impurities are removed from the bed. Now the third step involved is a counter current purge step. By counter current purge step we mean that the bed is being prepared for the next cycle. This is a light recycle step in which hydrogen which is obtained from the product gas side can be used to purge the bed in such a way that the contaminants which are still remaining left out contaminants in the bed they experience a lower partial pressure and as such certain amount of other contaminants can also come out in the process. And the final step is now the bed gets ready for next cycle we have to again pressurize this bed that pressurization is done by means of introducing the purified gas which has been obtained from the first step and that recycled purified gas is introduced to again increase the pressure of the bed so that again the first step can be carried out. So this is the fourth step cycle of a PSA however we can achieve higher hydrogen recovery by addition of certain more steps. So like the second step which is the blow down step at this step still substantial amount of hydrogen remains in the bed and if it is not removed it may go into the tail gas and then it will be burned off. So what we can do is we can still add certain step like the pressure equalization step before the blow down step such that we can achieve more of hydrogen recovery. Now how does this work? So the feed gas which is there are two beds which are kept in contact one bed which is at a comparatively higher pressure compared to the other bed which is at a relatively lower pressure. So before the blow down step when the first step is operational the pressurization step at the end of it still there is lot much amount of hydrogen which is there in the bed the feed is stopped at that point and the gas flow from the high pressure bed takes place in the co-current direction of the feed gas. Now since there is a pressure difference between the two beds this is connected to another bed which is at a lower pressure. Now the pressure finally is that is between it is not reduced to the low pressure rather it remains to an intermediate pressure and in this way the hydrogen can be transferred to the other bed in a counter current direction. So this is a counter current pressure equilibration step in which the hydrogen which can still be recovered from the pressure first bed can be transferred to the transported to the another bed bed 2 and this particular bed can be used for the repressurization for the step number 4. Another method could be providing a purge step. So the process is still the same as is the pressure equalization step. The only difference is the second bed that can be a bed which can be used for providing purging. So either it can be the step number this one can be used for providing the pressurization step or it can provide the purging step using additional beds. Now these additional beds means more number of steps involved more number of more is the complexity of the system more is the cost associated. So the various performance indicators that decides the parameters of the process includes hydrogen recovery, how much amount of hydrogen we are able to get from the product stream, how much is the purity of hydrogen which we are getting, what is the energy consumption in the process, what is the productivity, what is the recyclability of both the absorbent as well as the process. Now in this process various absorbents can be used that depends upon what was the feed gas which was fed into the pressure swing adsorption that means what was the hydrogen production method, what was the feedstock which was used, what were the impurities present in the feed gas and also on to the final and use application like what is the purity desired for a particular application. So based on that we can select a proper absorbent. Now since one absorbent cannot remove all the impurities as such there are different absorbents used in the bed and that choice of a particular absorbent it depends upon which particular component needs to be removed from the feed gas. Also there is a sequence in which these impurities needs to be removed from the feed gas stream. So that both the absorbent which is to be used that depends upon the components which need to be removed at the same time what is the order in which the impurities are removed that all decides what will be the design of the pressure swing adsorption unit. But there are wide number of absorbents which are used like alumina, silica gel, it can be molecular sieves, metal organic frameworks, zeolites, activated carbons. So there are several absorbents which can be used. There are different materials which can be used as absorbent and they have a different affinity towards these impurities. So now since can a single metal cannot material or single absorbent cannot remove all the impurities we put layers of different absorbents and in that way we include the purity. Now the first material to be used is such that it should remove the water content or the moisture. So the sequence in which the impurities are removed are first of all water, then carbon dioxide, then methane, carbon monoxide, thereafter nitrogen and argon and finally hydrogen remains un adsorbed and it is collected. So this is the sequence of removal of the various impurities in the process. So water is the first impurity that needs to be removed in the layer 1. For this either alumina can be used or silica gel can be used, even activated carbons can also be used for removal of water. So the first layer can be used for removal of water, it can also be the material can also remove aromatics H2S and HCL. If we look at the different materials in the layer 1 it can be alumina but that has a higher. So that has a higher loading capacity. Like alumina can take up 30 moles per kg of the material, silica gel comparatively lower, 15 mole per kg activated carbon can still be in between the 2 like 20 moles per kg but then it is not preferred because it has a low volumetric capacity. Now once the water content is removed, so the next layer could be towards removal of higher hydrocarbons. So this could be C3 plus C3 or C3 plus hydrocarbons can be removed in the next layer and it is very essential to remove C3 plus or higher hydrocarbons in the layer 2. The reason being the third layer which is of activated carbon that gets poisoned or that strongly absorbs the C3 plus and it gets very difficult to then desorb from the layer 3. So prior to it enters into layer 3 all these C3 hydrocarbons or higher hydrocarbons needs to be removed in layer 2 which is using silica gel. Now next layer is of activated carbon, this activated carbon has a different affinity for towards different impurities. Wide variety of impurities can be removed using the activated carbons. The order of adsorption in this that follows is water higher than carbon dioxide, higher than methane, higher than carbon monoxide, nitrogen and the least one being for hydrogen. In the activated carbon usually the process which is used for separation is micro pore diffusion. And if we look at the kinetics of adsorption in activated carbon, the fastest one is for hydrogen, nitrogen, then nitrogen, then carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane. Now once this has been removed in the this particular step, so the next step which is that of the removal of carbon dioxide occurs as well as the lower hydrocarbons. In this particular step which is the third step or the third layer of activated carbon. However, this also can remove several impurities present like H2S and the order that followed is followed in the activated carbon layer is first of all H2S is removed, then the other hydrocarbons C1 and C2 hydrocarbons, then carbon dioxide, unreacted methane can be removed in this third layer which is of activated carbon. This material is less expensive and it has an isotherm which is less non-linear than the zeolites. At the same time the cost is comparatively less, but the problem with activated carbon is it has a lower adsorption towards CO. As such this is because the CO has a lower partial pressure, so it can only partially remove CO. So our next layer is further required to remove the CO content and that is a final layer of zeolite. So this is also known as a polishing layer which adsorbs the remaining CO present and it has a higher volumetric loading for the carbon monoxide. The important thing here is this layer is more respondent or it can adsorb very strongly carbon dioxide and moisture. So as such the CO2 and moisture should not reach this layer 4. Now if what will happen if carbon dioxide or moisture reaches it will form a strong bond and then we will require very high temperatures to remove or very low pressures, vacuum pressures to remove that. So in order to avoid that the ratio of the layer thickness of activated carbon and zeolite is selected in a manner that CO2 and H2O do not reach this zeolite layer. Even in the zeolite layer the order of adsorption is, the adsorption is highest for CO2 then CO then methane then nitrogen and hydrogen. With this final layer we can even reduce the carbon monoxide content to less than 10 ppm and finally the unexorbed product can be is there which can be collected at the outlet. Now so the various requirement that are from a absorbent in a used in a pressure swing adsorption are that it should be stable in the presence of the various impurities which are there in the feed stream and subjected to that it should still have a long life, low cost, it should have a high loading capacity, it should desorb without use of vacuum or without requirement of a higher temperature, it should provide mechanical stability, these PSA units columns are of several meters of height. So as such it should be mechanically stable under that much of pressure, when there are flows it should not crush, these orbit should not crush into fine powder and we should at the same time get high productivity. So this is productivity is defined as the rate of hydrogen produced to the amount of absorbent which is being used. So these are the requirements for the various absorbents which can be used in PSA. Now other than the absorbents that we have seen there can be many other absorbents, these are the modified absorbents that can be used like modified activated carbon or impregnated with saline solution or it could be zeolite 5A or zeolite 13X which can be modified with sodium ion or metal organic framework like MGMOF74 or UIO66. There could be combinations of zeolite with activated carbon, zeolites with metal organic frameworks or hollow fibres that can also be used at absorbents. So the performance of pressures in adsorption that depends upon which absorbent is being used, what is the loading percentage of that absorbent with the impurities, designing of that, optimization of the various absorbent layers and then addition of multiple beds but then the addition of multiple beds again can add to the cost or complexity of the process. So the pressuring adsorption operates at a ambient temperature but subjected to the pressure variation we get the hydrogen purity which can be very high. Now the hydrogen which can be recovered from the process is in the modern plants of around 90% there can be different plants with sizes ranging from 30 normal meter cube per hour to 4 lakh normal meter cube per hour. The energy consumption in the process is less we can get high purity 99.999% purity there is less investment and operational cost required for it. The materials which are used at absorbent they are less expensive and wide variety of feed gas obtained from various processes can be cleaned can be purified using this particular method like the one which can be obtained from steam methane reforming or partial oxidation or methane decomposition, gasification, petrochemical or refinery of gas or even coke oven gas. In these processes even if the hydrogen content varies between 30 to 90% still that can be purified using the pressure swing adsorption method. Compared to the carbon dioxide removal method since the number of steps involved is lower so the cost saving is more in this particular method. The energy efficiency of the process is higher because the tail gas which is obtained after pressure swing adsorption that can be used to meet the energy requirements in a SMR plant and this off gas or the tail gas which is obtained from pressure swing adsorption that has a lower heating value of 4000 to 8000 kilojoule per normal meter cube. The process in the process the operational life is high it is reported that we can achieve 130 years of operational life and the important thing is there is no deactivation problem associated with the absorbent or the poisoning issue that can be are absent in the process. So in the next class we will see membrane based separation method, the cryogenic separation as well as the solvent based removal method for hydrogen purification and separation. Thank you.


I'm a dirty girl


Good morning everybody and welcome to this presentation from World Voices on AI and legalities and I'm Dan Leonard, president of World Voices, joined by Dave Gravasier, president emeritus of World Voices and a founding member and our guest Rob Siglampaglia, who is also a founding member of WoVo. He's been with us since the early days. Our legal counsel, in fact. He's also our corporate counsel. But Rob graduated, come laudee from University of Connecticut with a bachelor's of arts degree majoring in political science. He also attended and graduated from Pace University School of Law with a jurist doctor degree and Rob is also author of the book Voice Over Legal, which hit number one on the amazon bestseller list for entertainment law books, of which is not a big category, but there must be one. Anyway, uh, welcome Rob. I mean we everybody's talking about AI, you know, we see we see the ads and facebook of it's almost like human voices or it's better than human voices or it's all these things. Is it really a threat to everybody? Why don't we just start that way and then we can get to some of the other points that we want to get to? Sure, it's a threat. I mean, it could put the live actors and voice actors right out of business. Yeah, maybe it would serve us to if you could recap Bev standing's case. That was the first one that really got everybody's attention. Would it be pertinent to talk about how that came about and how you resolved it? Sure, yeah. So what happened with Bev was that she had recorded like back in 2018 time frame.  They told her it was for a translation job for Chinese translation, which is red flag right there, China. And a couple of years later, her daughter heard her voice on TikTok as the text of speech voice.  And she was like, wait a minute. I never I never did any work for TikTok. So she traced it back to that job she had done for the Chinese translation. What we did was we copyrighted those files because she had done them from her home studio. And we filed a copyright infringement case in the Southern District of New York. And, you know, TikTok didn't even know that they had purchased the files. They had gotten them not illegally. They had gotten them from that company that did the the voice that the work that did for them. And they were nowhere to be found. Lord knows where they were. They were probably somewhere deep in China. So TikTok ended up selling the case and, you know, making things kind of right.  So you have to trace them, you know, contractually protect yourself now. And like online casting is not going away. AI voices are not going to go away either. I know of some professional voice actors who are going ahead and licensing their voice with some online service that can clone their voice. Where do we decide what's right for us? I mean, that's really a personal decision. So right now, AI is still a way much in its infancy. Well, I mean that really, because it's been been developed. It's been developed for a long time. You know, it's been at least 10 or 20 years where it's AI has gotten to this point. Now, what we're seeing now is we're seeing the end results. We're seeing the marketing. We're seeing the business plans coming through. We're seeing the way to make money. As a matter of fact, NVIDIA, if anyone has NVIDIA stock, you know how AI, you know, can make you tons of money because the stock, they just, just yesterday put out their earnings and their earnings have gone, you know, through the roof and their stock price has gone through the roof and, you know, it's gone up 600% in the past couple of years. NVIDIA is one of the companies that are at the forefront of AI for, not necessarily for voice-overs, but for AI in general, technology. So the technology, now it's actually started to make a push consumer-wise, business-wise. So this is why we're seeing these issues come up now. But these issues, I've been talking about these issues for years. I did a presentation about this in 2019, back in VoiceOver Atlanta, you know, what to look for in a contract and, you know, it's been building up to this. So now, now the results. So now, voice actors just need to stay on top of these things to figure out when they want to jump in, or if they want to jump in to see if there's a way to make money as a clone of the voice. So there are opportunities out there. Some voice actors are like, I want nothing to do with it. Other voice actors are embracing it. So it's really the same thing with actors. It's the same thing with on-camera. You know, on-camera, I just talked to a filmmaker the other day who's doing a complete AI film. He's doing it 100% AI. No humans. All voice and faces that he's going to just generate. So, and we can talk about the different styles of AI that you have to, you know, the different uses for AI that people should be aware of, because there's really three big uses. You can clone someone's voice direct, or clone someone's image direct and use that. You know, so James Earl Jones, a celebrity, you can clone him and put him right in Star Wars just like they did, or Billy Joel's new video, where they cloned, you know, they took an actor and they put Billy Joel's face on it and made him young again, right? So that's one use. Same thing with voice. You could clone your voice. There's machine learning, which is another usage, and voice actors are getting paid big bucks right now for machine learning. So all what that is is you're going to record a bunch of files and then they're using those files to train to make AI sound more natural. They put the breath sounds in, they put the puzzles in, you know, all those things, it's trying to emulate human speech. So that's voice actors can be hired to machine learn. Same thing with actors. They could be hired just to teach AI. The third is the most, the one that's the most disturbing to me, and the one that should be most disturbing to all. And that's generative AI. What generative AI is, that's where the computer creates an entire new something, entire new likeness and entire new voice. And what it does is it scours all the files on the internet and comes up with something new. So for instance, I want a picture of a dog, right? And I want AI to generate it. So what the computer does is it goes out and scours every single picture of every dog that they can find online and it comes back with a unique looking dog. So it does the same thing with voices and it does the same thing with likenesses. So that's the part, that's the concern that the community has and that we should have because how are we going to know if they use the little piece of our voice to come up with a new voice? So how do you protect yourself from that, Rob? Right. So there's technology now that's coming up. That's coming that's out there that is being created so you can trace, you can trace your voice and you can opt out of those machine learning and doing those jobs so that you're not, you're not at least being illegally using your voice. So, you know, you can't really prevent somebody from using F files that are out there. There's really no way to prevent that unless you can digitally watermark it, which that's the technology that's coming. So, you know, with every new technology, there's a counter technology that comes out.  So stay tuned. Davidi is one of the companies that are doing it. They're not really out yet. So, you know, just keep your eyes open for it because it's still, you know, and that's what the whole lawsuit is about that New York Times brought against ChatGPT and the artists brought against ChatGPT, they're trying to say generative AI should be a violation of copyright. But the courts are not, they're really not helping because they're saying prove it. Prove that your voice is part of the, prove that your article is part of that new article. Prove that your voice is part of that new voice. Prove that your face is part of that new likeness. So that that's the hard parts, the proof. So it's a little, the proof part's a little behind yet. So the technology will catch up, but right now it's a little behind. So. So in the interim, while this is developing and the software to detect is not quite out yet, is there a way that we can protect ourselves like for the contract or with a statement? Yes, with a contract. Well, first of all, the law is protecting us a little bit. There's a couple of things that happened. The copyright office has said that, and they, this has been their policy for a while, they're not going to copyright anything that there's any generative AI in it, they're not going to copyright it. So if you come up with an AI film, that's generative AI, they're not going to copyright it. So it's, they're not going to have any protection. So that's one kind of pushback. You'd have to prove there's, they're coming up with standards and you have to prove that a majority of the work is human comes out of the mind and not from the computer. So there's guidelines for that that they're still coming up with. And the second thing that happened is there that the FTC or the federal government just passed the anti-fraud law saying that, you know, any, any AI that's used to commit a scam, commit a fraud over phone lines or computer lines, it's, it's criminal. So, and the FTC enforces that.  I've been, you know, it sounds like your kid, I've been in an accident. Like I'm in jail, send me $50,000 or, you know, they're asking for a ransom kind of thing. You know, those are, those are the kind of scams that fall under that new act. Deep faking. So that, you know, I think the, the, the impetus behind the law was when there was that deep fake with Joe Biden during the Vermont campaign. And that's when all this happened, the law got passed. I mean, obviously they've been talking about it for a while, but it actually pushed it over the finish line, I think. So Rob, you're saying right now the best recourse is through the courts.  You're not the only one that we can turn to it.  So a lot of the cases work, start out from legitimate work. So one, but one of the cases, the company I paid the producer and the producer never got the talent to sign off. So the talent found our voice on a, on a database and then they paid to settle the case. But then they messed up and they put it back on the database. So now there was some pornographic stuff that was that a lot of pornographic stuff that was done using the, the clone voice. So now they're paying again. But these are issues, you know, that are happening all the time. There's, there are some of the, the pay-to-plays are, they're not, they're promoting things like they're signing off on contracts, letting machine learning happen and not letting the talent know and stuff like that. So you got to be aware, like I said, aware where your files are going, read the terms of service and then, you know, follow it, you know, make, make sure that you're asking questions, you know, if you, like, if you did an audition for machine learning, for instance, and then you end up not agreeing to terms, make sure that the files get destroyed and that are still used because some, some of the places are still, still using the files. So contracts. Talk about that new replica studios contract. SAG after recently negotiated with replica studios. This was announced at CES and, and Fran Drescher called it a great example of AI being done right. So what's good and bad about this contract? So the collective bargaining in the TV and film agreement and replica studios are there, it's similar. So the disturbing thing about both of those things is that AI was not banned. Like that you didn't didn't say no AI, producers can't use it. So what they did was they set up parameters. So the replica studios contract, that's non broadcast. So that that mirrors the parameters that are in the broadcast, film and TV collective bargaining agreement. And basically what it says is, if you do a job and you get paid for that job, if they want to clone your voice to for that job for that project, that's okay. You know, they set minimum pay that you need to get in that circumstance. If they want to use the files for a future job, what the contract says that you, they have to get something from you specifically in writing, giving permission and that they need to you need to negotiate pay. So they didn't really say what the pay it can be, except that has to be minimum for the day.  But you can you can negotiate anything that you want. Because they didn't really set a, you know, this is the price. Now they just said, this is the minimum that has to be paid. And then they also put in there that if there is a celebrity deceased person or celebrity, they can use those files that they have, you know, they can get the deceased person's voice print and make a or likeness and make a clone, but they have to get the the estates or the family's permission. Right. And those permissions will have to be specifically revoked. So they give the right to revoke them to the to the estates or to the the actor. So what's missing in that shell? You know, what's missing in that? What would you like to have seen written into that? Well, the other things that they so that's for the current projects, for future projects, they can use those files, they have to pay you. But as I mentioned before, what they allow is generative AI without payment. So those are the things that that's the real danger, because there's no way to track it. That's the problem. So generative AI, if they use your if you have to prove your that they're using your like this, so it has to be close on you then. Right. Or like this would have to be close enough to find it. Or your face to be able to prove that, you know, that that's not allowed. Like that specifically is says in the contract if there is any any resemblance of any of the 10 D questions we want to get to. Sure. One thing I want to bring up is in our last webinar with Janet Walton, the president, CEO of Dan helped me out here sound spot some sunspots. She said it was very useful for her to have AI in certain circumstances. For instance, her husband got dystonia and could no longer answer client needs. And so they cloned his voice to be able to voice spots that they really liked his voice for. And she likes the fact that they can drop in tags or one or two words in a spot that that needs a change in the copy. And the voice actor is off, you know, in the Bahamas on vacation. There are some of those instances popping up that seem to be useful for voice actors. Yes, there are. It's a new movement I've seen, actually, where the producers want that ability to, you know, fix a couple of words, add a tag, not generate new things. And that's that's where the line has to be drawn. If they want to generate a new commercial, generate a new tag, that that's where that actor should still be paid. And that's kind of what the SAG contract says. If they want to use what you did for to fix that in that particular production, it's OK. But you just have to have to be paid for the production. So as long as you're paid, they allow that usage for AI. So what I think studios should do, and I know that there are some that are talking about doing this is just get some kind of waiver or contracts upfront that they're going to say that if they're going to use your voice to clone and do simple things like that, like they used to do in the past, it's really no different than when they you would do like five takes and they would take part of take one, two, three, you know, they or they take a word and combine it. It's really no different. So they're doing the same kind of thing, but they're just it's easier to to clone the voice and come up with the whole phrase and then piece it together.  And they will know that the files are going to get destroyed. The clone files are going to get destroyed after the production that they're not going to store them anywhere that if they're not going to use a future productions unless you get paid for it. So if all that's spelled out in agreement, I think that it'd be more accepting and for voice actors because it's the unknown factor. Of course, that's the scary part is, you know, they're using my voice for clone.  So. So Dan, how about some questions from our attendees? Yeah, let's if anybody has a question for Rob about AI, because we're always seem to be asking these questions. And, you know, again, if you go on Facebook, you're going to get a trillion different opinions about that. But if you have a question, put it in the chat. There's a chat box at the bottom of the Zoom page. We've all been on Zoom. It's always there. And if you have a question for Rob specifically about this particular topic, throw it in there. And so that would be the best way to get your questions answered right now. Actually, Dan, is there them coming in as panelists that they need to use the Q&A block and not chat? Oh, it's oh, it's in the Q&A bot, right? That's right. Carry on. So do we have questions yet? Yeah. Elizabeth asked one, following on with the best standing case strategy, she was able to copyright because she recorded the files herself. But if she had recorded those files in a studio, would she have been without recourse? That a recourse that would only have been likeness, violation of the use of likeness. And we also put that in as a count. But copyright is much stronger legally than violation of the use of your likeness because copyright is basically a strict liability. You just prove that they use your files without your permission. And then the statute gives an amount of damages that the court can award. And you don't have to prove that you were damaged. You just have to show that they have used your work without permission. And then the court decides on a sliding scale from like $500 per violation into $55,000 per violation where it falls. So if she had recorded in another studio, she wouldn't have had that option. It would have just been illegal use of likeness. Yeah. Lynn Darlington is an interesting question. Concern about pulling audio from our websites. Have we seen examples of that? Everybody's... Any audio that's out on the internet right now on YouTube, on your website, anywhere is being... Right as we sit here, it's being scanned millions of times. That's what Generative AI does. So yes, that's the technology. And so the only way you can avoid it is get the... When the counter technology comes out, trace it, or don't go on the internet. Those are your courses right now. All right. We've got one from Phil Colicotronis who asks, do you think nowadays some potential clients ask for auditions just to do voice harvesting for AI purposes? Or should we proceed there as we always have? Absolutely. I've seen cases of that. The auditions are... I think it gives you hints. You can see little red flags in the specs. But their intention is to use it for machine learning most of the time. They're not going to go public facing with it because then they get snagged. But if they're sued, but they're tarvest, they're using it for machine learning for the most of the... A lot of times. Or... I mean, Generative AI could be... You'll never know because it's just like that's the computer scanning it, but they can put it up for storage and then it will be part of Generative AI. But again, there's really... You don't know about that. So that just happens. The machine learning part, that's the part like you can get money. You should get paid for that. So if they're doing an audition and they're legitimate, they'll say that if we like these files, we'll use them for machine learning or model. And I see their companies that do that. But there are companies that are sneaky.  People may say I'm a racist or something, but China, they come out of China. If you see something out of China, those are the little contracts I see and they're the ones that they do sneaky stuff. I don't know. I think it's just because they don't really have the same copyright laws that we have here or that you can't trace them or whatever. Get away with it. Get away with it. So if you see a company from China, immediately put up a red flag. Immediately, you have to put it up because it could end up in the wrong hands and then you're not going to be able to find them. Hopefully, if they're doing contracting with a legitimate company, then it's not the ideal situation, but it's easier to track them down. And if you need to bring a lawsuit, bring a lawsuit. If they're using one of the big companies. Because a lot of the big companies also contract. They all do. They contract with smaller contractors and some of them were out of China, like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google. They contract with studios all over the world, some of them are in China. So sometimes it's legit. But if you can find out the end company that they're working for, that's the ideal situation. Not just a blind, this company from China is taking my audition or my files and I don't know what's going to happen from there. Once again, if you have a question for Rob, because again, we've all been asking questions about this, which is why we've brought Rob in here to talk with us this morning. There is a Q&A bot at the bottom of the Zoom page and you can ask your questions right there because we want to hear from you because this is for you. So Rob, it's getting really, really bad out there as far as everybody thinking that they're going to get cloned. Are we seeing lots of examples of this? I mean, obviously you were saying that you've been getting a lot of stuff that your inbox is pretty full of people asking about this. How bad is it out there, especially in the voiceover world, because we know they're doing it in video and various other things. But what about specifically with voiceover? What exactly are you seeing? Well, I'm not seeing blatant cloning, which is a good thing. So I'm not seeing people a lot of deceit, some auditions maybe, but it's more for sneaky stuff, machine learning. It's not really cloning where they're using the voice on a database. But what I'm seeing a lot of is people that had done all the jobs five years ago where they were doing it, saying all these lines, all of a sudden they're on a database.  I'm seeing that. I'm seeing the results now with people coming forward. Hey, why is my voice on here and here and here and here? Well, give me the contract that you signed when you did the job. Then it says right there, they're going to do it for cloning. They're going to do it for commercial uses. This is not the other thing. I'm seeing a lot of that. Then people are saying, can I get out of this? It's really difficult to get out of that. There may be a reason to get out of it, but you've got to have a strategy or a reason why you could break the contract. You said you had like four cases right there on your desk. Can you speak generically about the nature of those cases? Yes. So those cases, one of them I already told you about with the company that had mistakenly put the voice back up on a database and then it was used for pornographic stuff and a whole bunch of other stuff. And then a couple of the other ones deal with some of the beta plays that are doing these auditions, but then they're not coming to agreements, but they're just allowing the companies to use the files anyway and not paying the talent. So those are a couple of cases that I have. I've got a couple of cases where there's no contract and then there's some kind of cloning or some kind of machine learning that's being used. So if there's no contract, that's actually better for the talent because then you could do a cease and desist because you still own your files. You still own where your work's going to be used. You own that right. And you also own your likeness. So if you're not, well, you don't own your likeness, but you have the right to say where your likeness is used. So I don't want to confuse anybody. So if you don't sign that away, then you still have that right. So you can send a cease and desist if you see that your files are being used for machine learning purposes or your voice is on a database somewhere. If there was no contract at the beginning, that's going to help. So those are the kind of things that I've been seeing. If there's no contract, it'll help. If there's no contract, well, ironically enough, yes. If there's a contract, well, if there's a contract and it doesn't cover this, that will help too. But if the contract, most of the contracts that I'm seeing, they were setting this up for it right now. So they were saying, we're going to use this for artificial intelligence, we're going to clone your voice. We're going to use it for any purpose we want, in perpetuity, commercially. It could be a commercial. They spell it all out. And we're using it for Amazon or saying that's the kind of stuff it says in those contracts. So look for those words so I get it. So I don't know why people signed those contracts. And those are the contracts that when I did review, I would call them career suicide contracts. Like, why are you going to do this? You don't know what they're going to use this for. They're saying they can use this for anything in the world any time. So like right now you're getting 10 grand, but who knows what's going to happen three, four or five years from now. So why are you signing that contract? Like without that knowledge, it's really hard to agree to things. I think a lot of us are just put off by the verboseness of a legal contract and how long and how difficult it can be to read through them. Is there anything that we should be, you know, by paragraph or by words? Is there anything we should be looking for? Well, first of all, the longer and the more complex the contract is, can I have a look by a lawyer, pay a couple hundred bucks and have a lawyer look it over? Like that's our job. That's why we went to law school, right? So that should be the first clue. If you have a 14 page contract that was sent to you, I'm telling you right now, there's going to be something in there or more than one thing in there that I'm going to find. That's going to be not in your favor. So just get it looked over. If it's something simpler, a couple of pages, focus on the usage. Focus on how if you, you know, I mean, I'm sure many people have heard this already, in perpetuity. If you see that word, you have to break that down. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's something that if you can't, if you don't have to agree to it, don't because first of all, nothing lives in perpetuity, nothing, right? So why are you going to agree to in perpetuity? All that means is they haven't thought about the usage. That's what that means because so you want to have them think, how are you going to use this? Ask that question. What is your intention? Oh, we don't know. Client doesn't know. Well, let's figure it out. You can base your price on that. You can make lots of decisions based on that. So if you, in perpetuity is definitely a word, I'm not saying that don't sign any contract that says it's in perpetuity, but just you need to do a little more digging on it. Let's get to these questions, Dan. Yeah, we've got one relating to that. Venus Crute asks, Rob, do you feel that the rates they're offering to do the learning AI type is fair? It completely depends on the job. So I've seen them for $1,000. I've just negotiated one for $20,000. So it really just depends on who's hiring you and what they're using it for. Sometimes they'll say they're going to do machine learning and they're going to use your files to combine it with other voices to come up with another voice. Sometimes they'll say that in the contract and those generally pay more than if they're just using it for machine learning. So I don't see a standard anywhere there and it really is.  There are those companies that just popped up to make a buck and they're not going to be around long. Yeah. KO voice asks on a question we were just talking about. If you say at the top of the audition, this audio is for audition purposes only, is that enough? Oh, you just gave them another line, they could sample. No, it doesn't mean anything. The computer doesn't just, they don't understand what, I mean, they kind of understand because that's AI, but it doesn't matter. They're just doing that to train the computer how to speak better. So no, that doesn't. There's no legal protection in that. Yeah, not at all. Okay. Rivka Rothstein asks, do you know anything about the privacy laws that different voice cloning services abide by? For instance, if she wanted to create her own AI voice through something like 11 Labs, what privacy do they ensure? That's a good question. There are some legitimate ones, 11 Labs, Murph, and they're going to spell out what they're going to use your voice for. So they're either going to put it up on the database or they're going to use it for machine learning. And they all have, if they're legit, they'll have a paragraph in their contract that says how they're going to protect. They're going to use reasonable industry standards to protect your voice from being hacked. They'll use that kind of language. And they'll also have language in there about when you, the fair ones will say that the contract's only valid for a year or two years or whatever term you want to pick. And it'll also say what happens at the end of that term, that they're going to give you the voice back. They're going to destroy the files. They're going to destroy them after a period of time, whatever it'll say what happens when the contract's over. So those are the things that you want to look for if you're considering cloning your voice from a legit company. All right. Follow up on that. Which of these voice cloning companies have the best reputations? Do you have any insight on that yet? Respeacher, Murph, 11 Labs. What's the other one? It starts with an R. I forget it, but there's another one. There's like four or five of them that I see. Revoicer, that's it. I see over and over again that have legit contracts. And most of those, I think all of them have actually consulted with me. So that's because a lot of them be saying voice actors going with the same changes to the contracts.  And then they'll end up going over their contracts and kind of making it so that they go get built into all their contracts. So I've talked to many of those companies. All right. Liz Dineshnera says, if we decide to clone our voice, what basics should we look for in an agreement? The ones I just mentioned. Time period. You need to mute it. There we go. Okay. Time period is a big one. So you should, when you're signing a contract, you should be able to set a period of time. So a year, two years, some kind of term. It shouldn't be forever. You should be able to try it out, make sure it's working out for you, and then be able to terminate the contract if it's not. So that's a big one for me. Some kind of residual. If they're going to pay you for usage. So 10%, 20%, whatever you negotiate. So if they're selling the voice, you're getting a piece. Some kind of say over who gets to use the voice. So you're not running into a conflict situation. So being able to veto certain voice, certain jobs, that's another thing that you should try to put into the contracts, and most of them are okay with that. What happens to storage? They're going to make sure you don't want that to be hacked. You don't want it to be used for generative AI. In the general public, you want it behind some kind of firewall. That's usually in there. What else? What happens with the files when you leave? Does it belong to you? Do you get it back? Do you have to destroy it? What are they going to do when the contract's over? Those are big terms that you want covered in an agreement. All right. Joe Nangle. Hey, Joe, how's it going? So there's no legal verbiage we can add to our websites to protect the use of our demos for cloning purposes? Nope. Oh, well. No, you can put all those disclaimers up that you want, but they're not. If someone, first of all, they can't clone your voice. That's not legal. The only thing that can happen is that they can scan the files and then use as part of some other generative AI thing that you're not going to recognize. They can't just take your file off your website and clone your voice. That's illegal.  Plus, it's probably your file. It's yours. You own it. It's probably a violation of copyright too. So you don't need that disclaimer because it's already illegal. All you're trying, when you put the disclaimer up, what are you going to do? Prevent someone from that wants to break the law from breaking the law? Right? I mean, if someone's going to break the law, they're going to break the law. It doesn't matter what it says on the screen. And they may be from China, so they probably can't read it anyway. So I'm joking around, but you know what I mean. If the disclaimer, if someone wants to break the law, it's like putting a no trespassing sign up on your property, looking at it that way. So if they're going to trespass on your property, they can't have the damn signs there, what doesn't make a difference? It may deter some people, but it's not binding. It's not going to do anything. All right. No, Catherine Gaffney asks, what's the best way to find out if your voice is out there and being used without permission? That's a great question. That's what I don't have an answer to. So most people rely on their colleagues telling them that, hey, I heard your voice here or there, just like if there's a commercial that's running that you did that was not supposed to be running anymore and someone sees it somewhere, and that's really the only way. But there is technology that's being developed, so that you'd be able to trace, you'd be able to talk, give a sample of your voice. And then that sample lives on a server, and then you can compare other anywhere else on the internet to that sample. So that's in development. How soon will it be coming out, do you think, Rob? I think pretty soon, actually, because I've seen the posts for people to start putting up their samples. Some betas. Yeah. So pretty soon. And that's good. All right. Elizabeth Oaks asks, so what phrases or provisions in contract should be red flags or lined out absolutely? Anything that says that they have the right to, well, first of all, they're going to own your files. So if they take ownership, if it says that it's a work for hire, it's they're on the copyright, you have to, it may be okay for them to have ownership, but you have to put a caveat or a rider and say that they're not going to use your voice for cloning purposes. So that's first ownership. In perpetuity, any usage that they want, we're going to use the files for anything that we want in the future, for it be it commercial, be it narration, they'll list a whole bunch of things. Those are, that's a red flag. If they're going to take the files and there's no way to terminate the contract. So if it says that they can use it for whatever they want, and there's no time limit on there, and there's no way for you to terminate, that's a red flag. And you'll generally see these all in like one paragraph, it'll all be together, it'll say we own these files, you have no say over future use forever in perpetuity. It's usually all one paragraph that you'll see it. And sometimes you can't cross those out. Sometimes, if you cross them out, they're going to say they're not going to do the job with you. So that's just something that you have to decide if it's a worthy risk to take on for the amount of money you're getting paid or if you're going to pass on the job. And that's something that some talent, some talent have to decide. Tell them that I advise to. That's not my call to theirs. So. Liz Danecher, follow up question. Do we own the clone version that somebody's made of us? That would be a contract. Yeah, so some companies allow you to own the voice and your license to get back to them for a period of time. Other companies want to take ownership and then their license to get, your license to get from them, basically, to use it. So it really just depends on every company's different. So that's a negotiation point, though. Yeah, absolutely. Karen Clark asks, should we groups like WoVo start conversations with pay-to-play platforms regarding protecting our auditions? You mentioned something like firewalls. Yes, I think that you absolutely should. And I wouldn't even dig deeper than that and make sure that they're looking out for the talent and not for themselves when they're giving permission for the clients to use files for AI purposes or when they're doing other things that they shouldn't be doing, posting auditions that they shouldn't be posting in the first place. So I would dig even deeper. I would want them to to sign some kind of code of best practices or something on AI jobs. Would you be willing to help us, WoVo, in coming up with some language that we could present to those casting services? Of course, of course. Yeah, I mean, there's stuff I see over and over again and stories I hear over and over again that abuses. So you're at the apex of this issue. What troubles you the most about where it's going? Not necessarily troubling me, but I can see the unknowing part is the part that troubles me the most because it could go where I don't think it's the human element's ever going to come out, go out of arts. I don't think that that's ever going to happen. But how much? From your lips to God's ears, yeah. Well, I don't think it will. I know I agree, but how much? People are going to try. Well, of course they are because producers, but I don't even think the producers want to take the full human element out. I think they're trying to make their jobs easier and I can see it. I'm a producer too. So I see it from that side. I don't want to call these people back into new ADR. I just let me clone your voice and do the lines. You know what I mean? Like I can match it up much easier on the computer. You know what I'm saying? So I don't think they want to take the human element out, but they just want to make their job easier. I think what the scary part is is how far, like how far, how much of it they're going to, they want to take out of it. You know what I mean? Like they want to take out 75% of it. They want to take out 50. They want to take out 90. Like how far is it going to go? That's the part that troubles me. And then the generative AI part, like that part has to get worked out by law. Because they can just generate all new characters, all new faces, all new voices. So it's a wild west until those laws come into force? Right. And I don't know how good the technology is right now to be able to create 100% human looking likenesses or voices through generative AI by combining. But that's what they're working on right now. Those are the jobs that are going out that the voice actors are doing right now to perfect that part of the process. You know, the ones that are paying 20 grand, that's what they're doing, the machine learning. They're perfecting that generative AI part of the process. So we're kind of at the end stage of this now. At the beginning stages, there were just, you know, there was the robotic type voices that they were taking samples for. Now they're getting to the, we're doing the generative AI part now, where we're going to combine a whole bunch of voices by computer, a whole bunch of images by computer and come up with something that looks perfectly human and you're not going to be able to tell. That's what they're working on now. I was reading an article about gamer voices and producers who do those electronic games. And they're saying AI comes in really handy to protect the voices of voice actors who have to grunt and scream and yell. They can clone those interjections and save the actor's voice. Yes, that's true. And again, it just depends on how far how far they're going to take it. So, you know, they're going to just get rid of the actor altogether or surely, you know, they just get, is that where they're going to stop? So that's that's the scary part. And that's what the gap is wrestling with. Right. And that's the scary part for all of us. Like, that's, that's what we're worried about. And there's really no way to answer that question, but I just don't, I personally be involved with this for, you know, since kind of the beginning, I personally don't think that the human element is going to be removed completely. Like I think creativity comes in. Yeah, the creativity that, you know, the connection, you know, until I don't know if a robot is going to be able to make a human connection. I don't know when that day will happen. It might, but like, I don't know when that will be. I don't know when that will be accepted by the, you know, us humans will accept connections with with robots and AI. So I think we're, you know, I think, I think it's a way long ways down the road. So, yeah. Phil Kolakotronis asks, even if a legit AI company, of course, what is a legit AI company, agreed to destroy your voice files after a defined period of time, wouldn't they still have access if they did a disaster recovery of their file system at some later time? Well, that's what the contracts for. So if they're agreeing to destroy the files and they don't, that's what happened. That was the case that I was telling you about. They decided they said they were going to destroy the voice, take it down. They paid for that. And then they made a mistake and they ended up going back up. And so now they're going to be paying triple what they paid the first time, because now we have a contract, we have an agreement and they breached it. So, you know, if that would actually be a good thing for you, if that happened, because just call me and we'll, you know, we'll, I can file the lawsuit right there. It's easy for a judge to read a contract. So they violated it. All righty. Ellen Richards. So should we copyright our demos that are posted online? No, you don't have to do that. Again, you're not going to know, you're not going to know if someone's using your little piece of your demo for generative AI. We don't know, because the computer just does it automatically and they do it in the background. They don't tell you, hey, I used your demo. Right. And then so it's only if someone was going to steal it and then use it to clone your voice. But you still, you can still go after them for that. Like they can't, that's still not legal under US law, pretty much the whole world law. You can't do that. So I don't think you need to copyright, copyright. It's the same challenge that artists and photographers have is that AI is going out and grabbing snippets of their product and incorporating it into some, some other amalgam. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's what you're saying. Yeah, that's the case. That's those are the cases that were filed. You know, the photographers, artists and New York times, but already filed lawsuits against the chat GPT. And that's what that's what the cause of action is that they're using snippets of my work in violating copyright. And like I said, courts are like, you know, it's still running through the courts, but the initial reaction of the judges were like, prove me, prove it to me. And yeah, I'll, you know, I'll be more sympathetic kind of thing. So well, let's look at it from, from another perspective, because laws come from legislation. Are we seeing any real action in Congress or the Senate or the federal government to really try to address this particular situation? Yes. Yes. That's what that's what I said. It was a big step forward with the fraud act, because they specifically addressed AI. Deep faking is one of the big parts of that case or that law, like they're, they're, they weren't like when Joe Biden got deep faked, like that. That's why it got over the finish line, pushed over the finish line. But now they're talking about more, they're working on more of the nuances. They've been working on it for a while. You know, FTC had a whole, they've been having hearings on this for a long time. So yes, they are actively working on it. They did pass a big part of the law, you know, and maybe a bit of fraudulent. So that's good. The artist part of it's gonna, that's a whole other, that's a whole other arm. Like that's, that's a very specialized like the laws that they're passing are for the general public now, like it's for everybody. You know what I mean? So like now when they're moving on to artists, that's, it's more of a specialized, we're specialized group. So we're just not as big as a priority. You know, that this is a huge issue that they're trying to tackle. So, you know, eventually we'll get there. The courts will help. You know, as more lawsuits are brought, you know, there'll be precedent that will be set. So that's going to help FTC now doing regulations. They'll be able to help. So, and I know that every state has something pending, like every single state, you can go online and there's a website where you can track I laws and what every state's doing. So I forget the name of the site, but yeah, that's because Facebook is probably not the place to get the definitive answers on these questions. I mean, it's good to hear the conversation, but never has been. Yeah. Yeah. Facebook is good for raising issues, but it's not good for resolving them. Right. That's how I look at it. Once again, if you've got a question for Rob, there is a Q&A bot at the bottom of the Zoom window there. And I'm sure this probably raises more questions than it answers. But figure if you go in there, you can ask that question. We'll get that right to Rob. Rivka Rothstein asks, get what kind of official copyright process, if any, should we think about going through if we were to clone our own voice? If you clone the voice and own it, then you just register with the copyright office, the U.S. Copyright Office. It's simply the form of the sound recording. Yeah, you can record what you're cloning are the sound recordings. So you're not recording the actual, you can't record the cloned voice because that's a result. The voice pieces everything together and then comes out with another file. So you have to, it's the data files that you have to copyright. So the actual recordings that you made that they use to create your cloned voice. So that's what you register. You just register them as sound recordings with the copyright office. And then if those files are being used and you, you know, like if it's a straight clone and you can recognize you, then that's a violation of copyright. If it's the part where it's still up in the air is if they're taking just a little snippets, little teeth pieces and they're combining it with all 10,000 other voices since they come up with a new voice. Like that's the part where the copyright office you can't really enforce a copyright because you can't prove. Right. It would be hard to determine anyway if they've created a homogenous voice of lots of different people. Elizabeth Oaks asks, are there any big court cases pending that we should watch? She was disappointed with the recent dismissal of some of the cases in the Sarah Silverman generative AI case. The cases that everyone are watching are the ones against chat GPT, the ones brought up in the New York Times, brought by the photographers and brought by the artists, those are the ones to keep your eye on. That are the ones that deal with generative AI. So we'll see what, you know, we're going to see where the courts come down on that. If they're going to, if they say that it's, you know, you only have to prove a little teeny piece and you're protected or if they're going to say that you need to have more proof that it's you or your work. And then the other thing is keep your eye on the copyright office because the copyright office, like I said, they're not filing any new copyrights for generative AI. So if, for instance, like my dog example earlier, if I want a picture of a dog, a unique dog and I go on chat GPT and it brings me this nice new combined dog, I don't want to copyright that. I've been using it in a children's book or something and I want to copyright it. The copyright office is going to say they're going to deny the copyright. That actually happened to my daughter. My daughter wrote a children's book. She hired an illustrator. The illustrator went on chat GPT and did all the illustrations and the copyright office denied her, denied her copyright. So again, this is brought to you by worldvoices.org. Feel free to join us if you're not a member and you get to find out all these great questions and answers because that's what we have. Again, this will be available on our website. If you go into, if you remember, we will post this in the worldvoices website and you'll be able to watch this again if you missed some of it or all of it. I guess to finish up Rob, again, why don't we review what are some of the things that people can do to make sure that they're protecting themselves? Read the fine print.  People are focused so much on AI that they're missing all the other bad language and contracts that are screwed up over. So yes, protect yourself from AI. So put something in, make sure there's something in the contract that says that they're not going to use your files to clone your voice or for machine learning, right? Yes, put that in there. But don't forget about the rest of the contract. Like the rest of the contract may have bad things in there too that you want. So you can't just like, sure, AI is something to think about, but it's just added to the list of things that you needed to think about before, right? So that's, I'm seeing a very hyper focused concentration of people just reviewing contracts for AI stuff and they're forgetting all the other stuff that they have to look out for in contracts. So put, make sure that you have, make sure if the contract doesn't say already that if they're not going to use your files for cloning purposes or machine learning purposes, that you add that to the contract. So that's for this issue. But don't forget to review the whole contract as well. Alrighty. Well, thanks everybody for joining us this morning. This has been very enlightening. Rob, if they want some legal help, where do they go about this? So they could come to my website, which is robcigesq.com and I also just started up a membership program beginning of the year called the 30 on demand pay a monthly fee and you get one contract review per month, one draft per month, you get discounts on free copyrights, you get discounts on trademarks and LLCs. It's just for artists. So attorney on demand.com. Well, thanks for all your expertise, Rob. You're just a wealth of knowledge on this. And I guess to summarize, be proactive, be aware, read the fine print, stay with it, stay with the trends on this because they're developing fast. And read between the lines on auditions, read between the lines. If they're asking you to read a whole bunch of lines, you're going to read 10,000 words. Automatically thank you. That's for some kind of a job, like automatically think. So just read between the lines on what they're asking you. All right. Well, thanks everybody for joining us this morning. We appreciate your attendance. I'll also post this on our Facebook page. So if you missed it, you'll be able to see it there too as well. Rob, thanks again so much for joining us this morning and for continuing your legal, legal attack at all this stuff and letting us all know what's going on out there. My pleasure. Alrighty. Take care, everybody. We'll see you for our next webinar, which is we're not sure where it's going to be, but we got lots of topics. You'll be good though. Yeah. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, please let us know at infoatworldvoices.org. We'll be glad to hear from you. Take care. Have a great week, everybody.