interested in TV voices

[baby_jessica75]

I am thinking of trying to make some files from some voices extracted from episodes of tv series mostly female voices was wondering if anyone would know if it was legal to do this?

[cardigan]

As long as you don't try to make any money from it, I doubt if anybody will come after you. But make a nickel using the voices of actors, and I'm sure you'll hear from somebody! :P

Cardigan

[whatthe75]

Nice idea - but could be difficult getting the desired effect if you are only using lines from shows.

[Calimore]

One of the biggest issues in copyright law seems to be the idea of Fair Use. As Cardigan suggested, if you made a file for yourself or even if you made a free file for the board, any infringement on an artist's rights would probably be viewed as trivial, but once you make a penny on it, agents and lawyers start thinking about the cut of your profits that they aren't getting and will often act on an artist's behalf without them even knowing it.

A rule of thumb for 'borrowing' audio: 30 seconds is a sample of an artist's work that brings more awareness to their greatness, but 31 seconds is theft. So the courts have upheld time and again. However, the courts also recently found in favor of a suit filed by rapper 50 cent's attorneys against Taco Bell for saying in a commercial that the artist should change his name to 79 cents or some such hogwash. The court decided that Taco Bell was trading on the artist's good name without his permission and determined that the Bell's practice was Unfair Use of his "Brand" and awarded him a very nice settlement.

Since these are issues best left to copyright attorneys and their paralegals, let me point out that many lawyers will briefly consult with you for free by phone, probably providing better answers to this question than are likely to be found here.

[DKaiser]

It would probably be more rewarding to hypnotize yourself to believe the person is speaking in the desired voice, rather than fishing through clips of someone's voice. It'll end up sounding weird and randomly shifting pitch(like a bad voice synthesizer), even worse if there's background effects or music in those clips.