#artist booking agency

[yourtemponashville]

Tips for Taking Care of Your Instruments While on the Road

Summer travel season is upon us, which means making to-do lists and packing suitcases in anticipation of a weekend getaway or a more extended vacation. We carefully fold clothing and ensure that all toiletries are closed and secure. These might be typical tasks for the basic traveler, but a concert booking agency knows that summer means something entirely different for touring musicians and bands.

After a rather long pandemic-related hiatus, music touring around the United States and internationally is in full swing. It is important to remember that touring is work and not a vacation. Traveling from one location and venue to the next is hard on musicians and their instruments, especially in different climates and environments. Tour management can convey to musicians and bands some best practices for caring for instruments while on tour. Music business software solutions allow for combining innovations in touring logistics and practical instrument care advice to launch successfully managed events.  

Down the Street and Around the World 

Whether a gig is in your neighborhood or a continent away does not matter. All musical instruments require expert care, so they always function at peak performance.  

Making a Case for Cases 

It is important to invest in a proper case. A sturdy, hardshell case is essential for protecting your instruments while traveling. Have you ever seen airline employees handling your luggage? Now imagine them handling the most expensive investment in your craft. Various kinds of cases are available, but hard-sided cases can withstand the bumps, jostling, and drops that can occur when moving them from place to place. 

Make sure cases are also well-padded inside as an added layer of protection during transport. Look for cases specifically designed for your type of instrument and consider investing in cases with TSA-approved locks. And for additional security, ensure that all cases have identification tags with contact details in situations of loss or damage. 

The Art of Proper Packing 

It is fair to say we all know that one person can pack everything they need in a suitcase with room to spare or fit everything into a car like a jigsaw puzzle. These same skills should be applied to packing musical instruments. When packing instruments for traveling one day or an extended tour, make sure they are secured inside the case. Remove any detachable parts or accessories that might prevent a tight fit and wrap them separately in bubble wrap or cloth. It is also important not to overpack cases as this may place undue stress on the instruments leading to damage.      

It is Not Always a Dry Heat 

Fluctuations in temperature and humidity can damage instruments, especially when changes are extreme. Your tour management should conduct a little research on the average climate and weather of the locations on your tour. Instruments must avoid extreme temperature and humidity conditions to maintain their musical integrity. Avoid direct sunlight and contact with water. Storing and traveling with instruments in a climate-controlled environment is preferable whenever possible.   

Now It is a Dry Heat 

When addressing the high temperatures in states like Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada, we often hear climate observations about it being "a dry heat." Well, dry heat is still heat and can wreak havoc on musical instruments. Just like extreme humidity can cause damage, no moisture can also cause problems. Consider using a humidifier to keep instruments from drying out. This is an especially critical best practice for wood instruments like guitars, upright basses, and violins.  

Squeaky Clean and Damage-Free 

Regularly cleaning your instrument can help prevent damage and prolong its lifespan. During a summer tour, cleaning should be a regular part of your instrument maintenance to avoid problems before they occur and correct any damage that may be found. Use lint-free cloths to wipe down instruments before and after each use, and always avoid using any harsh chemicals or abrasive materials. 

While cleaning your instruments, check for signs of any damage that may have occurred during transport. Look for cracks, scratches, warping, loose strings, and broken drumheads. Address issues immediately to avoid further damage and to prevent problems from interfering with the quality of the live performance.

Your Voice is an Instrument Too 

While most of us think about safely transporting instruments like guitars, basses, violins, drums, and pianos, it is crucial to include an instrument that sometimes may be ignored- your singing voice. It can be delicate and fragile, thus requiring some extra care to keep it ready for every note. It is important to stay hydrated by drinking a lot of water and avoiding caffeine which can cause dehydration. Other bad habits affecting vocal quality should be avoided, like smoking and drinking alcohol. Warm up your voice before a performance, just like you would stretch your muscles before exercising. Try to avoid misusing your voice by excessive talking or yelling. Finally, it is essential to rest your body from head to toe, which will, in turn, protect your voice.    

Fine-Tuning Instrument Care 

Your artist booking agency or concert booking agency can assist musicians and bands with practical information to keep instruments sounding fantastic and a long-awaited summer tour to proceed smoothly. Instrument care requires a little extra effort, but it is well worth it to protect your investment and ensure high-quality performance.

For More Information visit us: Tips for Taking Care of Your Instruments While on the Road

[looney-mooney-studio]

Thinking about that one joke in the Book of Bill that implied Bill might be the biological father of the Flynn kids. Thinking about how Linda Flynn had a secret career as a famous astrophysicist at one point. Thinking about how we don’t know exactly what Bill was doing in the 90s, and how he seems to want to skim over that part of his life, after Ford broke up with him for good but before the twins showed up in Gravity Falls.

Thinking about how Bill frequently hung out with famous musicians. Thinking about Linda, a brilliant young woman fresh off a bizarre pop star career, wanting to make a name for herself that ISN’T Lindana, might have found a new direction with an old friend (before he showed her his true colors.)

Thinking about Bill, fresh off a devastating breakup, trying again one more time to get SOMEONE on Earth to make him a portal. Trying to make the plan WORK. Trying to get a home for his friends in the face of a home dimension that was being destroyed (again). Having someone who’s COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the man he was obsessed with, but who was no less brilliant and no less capable. (But, unfortunately for him, MUCH less gullible.)

Thinking about how Linda doesn’t want people to know about her former career as a famous astrophysicist. How she keeps this secret, even better than she did her past as Lindana. How she keeps the lid on this even TIGHTER. How she’s almost bitter about it. As if something HAPPENED.

I’m not saying Bill Cipher WAS Linda’s partner of at least five years, even going so far as to start a family with her before she saw his true colors and filed some sort of Uber-effective inter-dimensional restraining order against him, one-upping him so hard that he doesn’t even wanna think about it, but. Holy shit. Imagine

[potato-lord-but-not]

new mta !! got my books and my tea and my big ol jacket

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[doodlingleluke]

Ursa Minor 🧸

[vantaxol]

are we as a society at a point where we can admit the 3rd httyd movie was utter dogshit yet?

[chakapriambudi]

Middleman dalam bisnis musik

Middleman adalah istilah yang digunakan untuk merujuk kepada pihak atau individu yang berperan sebagai perantara antara dua pihak lain dalam suatu transaksi atau proses bisnis. Peran middleman bisa berbeda-beda tergantung pada konteksnya, tetapi secara umum, mereka memfasilitasi komunikasi, negosiasi, dan pelaksanaan transaksi antara pembeli dan penjual atau antara pihak lain yang…

[platinumrecords1]

Crafting Success: The Intersection of Artistry and Strategic Branding

In the dynamic world of the music industry, success goes beyond creating great music; it involves blending artistry with intelligent branding. Musicians aiming high in the competitive music scene recognize the crucial role played by different entities in shaping their journey. The symbiotic relationship between artists and these entities, such as music artist representation firms, forms the foundation of success in the competitive music landscape. This intersection, where musical brilliance meets strategic acumen, propels artists to new heights and ensures their melodies echo across time.

Visit here to read more - https://medium.com/@platinumrecords55/crafting-success-the-intersection-of-artistry-and-strategic-branding-4957344687da

[sttm99]

Based on this story by @kumimi3

Prohero!Katsuki, who's modelling for Calvin Klein. Who's seen you in some magazines, commercials, or fashion blogs and hasn't ever paid much interest. There's something about media that diminishes beauty, such that a pretty face becomes mundane when on television.

So he doesn't care much until he sees you for the first time during a shoot.

And he thinks you're absolutely unreal.

You're beautiful, in a way that has people unable to look away, as if something will happen the moment their eyes leave you.

There is no camera in the world that does you justice, and annoyingly, it has him sweating a bit when you're close, your torso leaning on him.

"Stand over there," the photographer says, instantly ushering you to step over to Bakugo.

"We're just gonna get some shots in before your solos, YN." The photographer tells you. "Stand closer to Bakugo."

The shoot takes longer than what he's used to. It dragged on, with the photographer intent in getting you in every single position he could come up with.

"You're his muse," Bakugo hears one of the makeup artists say. "He's practically enamoured."

'She's beautiful, though... I would be, too,' he thinks.

The shoot ends, and he's already researching your name and company while in the car on the way back. He's consuming information about you rapidly, measurements and backstories, your agency and your nationality, your pictures.

In about two months or so, you're booked to model some line of merchandise for one of the larger Hero Agencies in Japan. You're sitting against a backdrop, moving through accessories and black pieces of clothing, all with a similar orange cross over the chest.

When you're changing, redoing your hair and makeup, one of the stylists whispers to you.

"Are you two close? Is that why he was so adamant about you?"

You furrow your brows in confusion, looking at her through the mirror. "What?"

She blinks at you, "He refused anyone else. Told them it was you or nothing. Just you."

You paused. You had only just recently moved down to Japan for work, and you were still just an upcoming face. You didn't know anyone influential in the field other than the photographer from some months ago, and he hadn't mentioned it.

"Who?"

The girl looks at you, then shrugs over to the door, where a guy you recognise is talking to the photographer. He's familiar, and it takes a moment before you remember he's the guy you did your Calvin Klein shoot with.

"Who is he?" You murmur, and the hair stylist and the makeup artist look at you like you're crazy.

"Bakugo Katsuki? Dynamight?"

"The Dynamight?" Your voice goes down to a whisper as shock fills you. You're looking at the makeup artist with wide, disbelieving eyes, and she's looking at you like the same way.

"Duh? You didn't know what he looked like?"

"I-" You stammer, trying not to give into the urge to turn back and stare at him. "I only just moved here.... I'm not too familiar with Japanese heroes.

The girl snorts. "Well, it looked like you're gonna be very familiar with Dynamight."

You turn back slowly but find that he's already looking at you.

[sheltiechicago]

Camilla Falsini, “Tactical Urban Planning Intervention” (2020) in Milan, Italy. Photo by Jungle Agency

A New Book Repaints the Legacy of Street Art by Spotlighting Women Leading the Genre

Women Street Artists spotlights the diverse practices of 24 graffiti and mural artists hailing from around the globe who work in a variety of styles.

Olek, “Charging Bull” (2010), Wall Street, New York City

[hashtagloveloses]

The headline is pretty awful but this is one of those things that gets worse as you read it:

The 14-page petition, filed in Shelby County, Tennessee, probate court, alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took Oher into their home as a high school student, never adopted him. Instead, less than three months after Oher turned 18 in 2004, the petition says, the couple tricked him into signing a document making them his conservators, which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.

"Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys."

Oher was a rising high school senior when he signed the conservatorship papers, and he has written that the Tuohys told him that there was essentially no difference between adoption and conservatorship. "They explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents,' but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account," Oher wrote in his 2011 best-selling memoir "I Beat the Odds."

But there are some important legal distinctions. If Oher had been adopted by the Tuohys, he would have been a legal member of their family, and he would have retained power to handle his own financial affairs. Under the conservatorship, Oher surrendered that authority to the Tuohys, even though he was a legal adult with no known physical or psychological disabilities.

While the [movie] deal allowed the Tuohys to profit from the film, the petition alleges, a separate 2007 contract purportedly signed by Oher appears to "give away" to 20th Century Fox Studios the life rights to his story "without any payment whatsoever." The filing says Oher has no recollection of signing that contract, and even if he did, no one explained its implications to him.

The [movie] deal lists all four Tuohy family members as having the same representative at Creative Artists Agency, the petition says. But Oher's agent, who would receive movie contract and payment notices, is listed as Debra Branan, a close family friend of the Tuohys and the same lawyer who filed the 2004 conservatorship petition, the petition alleges. Branan did not return a call to her law office on Monday.

"Mike's relationship with the Tuohy family started to decline when he discovered that he was portrayed in the movie as unintelligent," Stranch said. "Their relationship continued to deteriorate as he learned that he was the only member of the family not receiving royalty checks from the movie, and it was permanently fractured when he realized he wasn't adopted and a part of the family."

For years, Oher has chafed at how "The Blind Side" depicted him, saying it hurt his football career and clouded how people view him. He has said that based on the film, some NFL decision-makers assumed he was mentally slow or lacked leadership skills.

"People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie," Oher told ESPN in 2015. "They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am."

"Beyond the details of the deal, the politics, and the money behind the book and movie, it was the principle of the choices some people made that cut me the deepest."

[yourtemponashville]

Did You Know Our Booking Software Is Customizable?

It may be extremely expensive to break an artist into the music industry; handling artist bookings requires skill, attention to detail, and a high level of organization. Numerous site visits are necessary, and numerous stakeholders must be coordinated. The market can be cutthroat. Therefore, using efficient artist booking agency software is essential for your company rather than handling everything manually and running the risk of mistakes.

Keeping track of everything, from your earnings to upcoming performances, is one of the most important components of handling artist engagements. You may achieve that and much more with the aid of booking management software.  

Some of the top booking agency software is available from YourTempo. They have a solution that can lessen your effort and streamline the present procedures in your company, whether you need help with booking artists or managing current ones. Since its start, they have had success with our music industry management software, and the same is true of their booking software. Utilizing their tools has several benefits, one of which is the customization they provide. You should be able to afford software that is customized to your business's demands. Your Tempo team avoids the one-size-fits-all strategy by addressing unique software requirements and putting in place designs that are tailored to you. The following are some advantages of adaptable booking management software.

Advantages of Adaptable Booking Management Software

Streamlines Everything

Many tasks that often require a lot of time, may be automated with the correct booking agency software. This involves scheduling appointments, accepting reservations, and informing clients on their reservations, all of which are expedited by the program. Additionally, it implies that managers will have more time to plan how to expand their artist management company.  

In order to save time, high-quality software also enables you to build templates for automated operations like reports and invoicing. Then, without changing many specifics each time, you may utilize these templates frequently across your clients.

Client Satisfaction

Keeping your clientele satisfied is one of the most important components of managing musicians. This entails keeping them informed about the concerts they are interested in and learning their preferences for upcoming performances. The ideal booking agency software should include an integrated messaging system that enables quick and simple client communication. You can keep track of how many messages have been delivered, as well as who has read and received each message, using the program. Because the program will accomplish this automatically, you won't need to ask your customers if they are aware of their reservations.

Less Paper Involved

Because you have to keep track of how many concerts an artist has played, the genre of music they are performing, and their pricing for each gig, managing artist bookings may take a lot of time. Because it offers a simple way to handle your artists and bookings as well as a system that maintains track of all previous transactions, booking agency software can help you in this situation. Therefore, you won't need to worry about the paperwork because the program will handle everything for you, including recording receipts and informing clients of their appointments.

Easy to Delegate

Because you must be present while managing your performers during concerts, it might be stressful. You may assign your staff members duties like informing clients and creating reservations when you use the proper booking agency software. Since the program gathers all the data in one location, you can send someone else who has access to this real-time data instead of having to manually watch everything at every show. The program also has the advantage of saving money and time. For instance, by automating procedures like updating customer information and producing timely reports, you may devote more time to business development efforts, increasing the agency's profit.

Better Access

When managers and their artists use superior booking agency software, they frequently have more contact with venues and event planners. Business owners may enhance their prospects and book more gigs, boosting their revenue, when managers can transmit the specifics of their artists' availability to all venues and event organizers in a certain area, provided they have consent from their clients. When managers have more artists and dates to book for performances, they may bargain better rates with venues and event planners. Additionally, this increases competition among managers for booking the same venues or events compared to other businesses.

Managers and their clients may benefit from a number of advantages thanks to artist booking agency software, which simplifies things for everyone. The greatest reservation software is available from Your Tempo. You may alter everything in your program with their customization services. They can revamp your contract's look and feel, or they can write brand-new reports just for you. Their program is made with the intention of simplifying your life. Reach out to Your Tempo for more information.

[starseneyes]

Heart-Warmed and Teary-Eyed: Kindness Matters

I have a P.O. Box that I check once a week. Right now, I mostly use it for letter correspondence with my friend @always-coffee—a tremendous published poet and beautiful human I met by chance online.

Monday she said she mailed her latest letter. So, I stopped by the Post Office on the way home from dropping the kids at school on the off-chance it made it through USPS faster than normal.

I found no letter inside, but a flyer from the Post Office saying they were holding something for me that wouldn't fit in the box. I wondered if Ali had sent a letter that was too tall (because she has such amazing stationary). I had no idea what was about to happen.

I glimpsed the package as they pulled it from a cabinet and wondered what on earth Ali sent me. That was not a letter.

Then I saw The Golden Notebook Bookstore label and knew it was something @neil-gaiman related.

For those who don't know (normal people who don't follow Neil on social media, for example), that is the local bookstore near Neil's home in New York. He periodically signs books for them that are sold with zero markup.

I am a fan of Neil as a writer, but also as a human. I don't follow many celebrities—a side effect of my set-kid youth—but I did follow Neil last year during the WGA Strike. Been a fan of his for ages, and Neverwhere is my favorite book.

Ali knows all this, and I just knew she had done something sneakily sweet.

I rushed home with a smile on my face, trying desperately not to set off the speed-trap on the road back. Let me tell you, driving speed limit when excited is not easy for me!

When I finally whipped into my driveway and sprinted into my house, I carefully opened the package (more excruciating slowness) and tried not to cry happy tears when I saw what was inside. Wrapped tenderly in bubble-wrap rested... a book.

What You Need to be Warm is a poem Neil wrote that features illustrations from some of the best artists in the industry. That in itself is wonderful. But the mission of this little book is what is so amazing.

See, the sale of every copy supports UNHCR—the UN Refugee Agency. This book literally helps people when you buy it.

I have wanted to buy a copy for ages, but you all know I thrift and buy books secondhand. I didn't want to do that with this book.

I wanted to buy it outright to ensure the maximum amount of money went to support the cause. So, I have been waiting until we were a little more stable so I could buy it full-price, outright.

Thanks to Ali, I have a copy that was purchased outright (so it helps people in need) and it is signed!

Yes, it's a signed copy with pen bleed on the opposite page, and all.

I would never do something like this for myself. You all know I am woefully practical and doing things for myself isn't second-nature. I’m working on it, but it is slow coming reprogramming a lifetime of behavior. So gifts like this... oh, they mean everything.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude that such a kind soul would do something like this for me. Thank you, Ali.

[potato-lord-but-not]

he’s the official tumblr sexyman (potato-lord-but-not edition)

[cy-cyborg]

The Jaws Effect and what it means for media representation

The Jaws Effect is the name of a phenomenon that described the panic and fear that sprang up around sharks, fuelled by Steven Spielberg's movie, Jaws. While the fear of sharks and other marine predators had always been a thing, Jaws launched the fear of sharks, and Great White Sharks in particular, to new (and mostly unfounded) heights. Most people will never encounter a real-life shark and so their only knowledge about the creatures come from movies and other forms of entertainment. Entertainment that largely portrayed them as mindless, unfeeling killing machines. After Jaws, sharks became a staple in the creature-feature genre of movies, which only perpetuated the idea of sharks as dangerous monsters even further, reigniting and reconfirming the beliefs the public held about them in the process. These ideas about sharks are, of course, not true, but the misconception and fear has had a real, observable impacts on shark populations, shark conservation efforts and even laws and legislations surrounding sharks and shark conservation around the world.

Ok but Cy, this is a blog about disability and disabled representation, what do sharks have to do with anything you talk about? Well, Because The Jaws Effect is just one of many examples that shows how massive of an impact representation in the media can have, for better or for worse, especially when talking about subjects the public generally knows very little about.

This conversation is not unique to disability representation, nearly every person I've seen who's talked about how to write and design characters from any minority brings it up eventually, but the media we consume, the movies we watch, the books we read can all have big impacts on people's perceptions on those topics. When talking about disability specifically, it's an unfortunate reality that not many people know all that much about us, and so, much like sharks, for many, their only real exposure to disabled people is through the media they consume.

If you don't know anyone in a wheelchair, and your only knowledge of life as a wheelchair user comes from books and movies like Me Before You, of course you're going to (spoiler) come away thinking that life in a wheelchair is horrible and death is better than living like that. If you don't know any DID Systems and your only exposure to a condition like that is through movies like Split (and honestly, a number of other horror movies and crime shows) of course you'll think people with DID are unstable monsters who could become violent any moment. If your only exposure to autistic people is Music, then it's not shocking that you might think Autistic people are "trapped in their own minds," completely unaware of the world around them and lacking any kind of agency. As much as I'd like to be able to say these are "just movies" or "just books," and that if we don't like them, we can just not watch them, they all had an impact on the real world and real people's perceptions of the disabilities they depicted, as do the many, many smaller examples of bad representation.

This is why I personally spend so much time focused on the portrayal of disability in the media, why so much of my content is focused on creating resources for creators to represent us better, and why I think writers, artists and other types of creators should care about the representation they include.

Unfortunately, people believing misinformation and stereotypes, while annoying, isn't the worst of the impacts bad rep can have. If a stereotype is prevalent enough, and enough people believe it, it can both put us in harms way and cause us to loose access to things we desperately need and things designed to help us. One really common example of this is when movies and TV shows show a character getting up out of their wheelchair, and use this as proof that the person is faking being disabled. However, in reality, there are many disabilities that might mean someone has to use a wheelchair, even if they can still walk a little bit or stand up. The stereotype of someone standing up from their chair being a fake, especially when it's reinforced over and over again in the media, leads non-disabled people to believe that anyone who stands up from their wheelchair is faking, and results in a lot of real disabled people being harassed and denied things like access to disabled parking, toilets and other accessible spaces. There were even a few cases of people reporting those they see get out of their wheelchairs to Centrelink (The Australian "welfare" department, for those not familiar) as frauds, and while these investigations don't usually go far before someone realises what's happened, it has, on occasion, resulted in people loosing the income they depend on to survive, even temporarily.

But the impact of representation, of course, can go both ways.

I was in high school when the first How To Train Your Dragon movie came out, and at the time, I didn't really like people being able to see that I was a leg amputee because I was sick of kids in particular staring, pointing at me, asking their parents "what's wrong with them?" or asking me directly, "what's wrong with your legs?". I wore long skirts and big, bulky tracksuit pants to keep my legs covered, something that became dangerous in the hot Australian summer, but I didn't care.

But the impact of How to Train Your Dragon came in two ways. The first, was that it was one of the first times I'd seen an amputee (or rather, multiple amputees) who didn't keep their prosthetics covered or hidden, and it gave me the little boost in confidence I needed to do that myself and wear clothing that was more comfortable and functional. And second, the comments from children changed, albeit slightly, but enough that it was noticeable. The questions and comments went from "what's wrong with you?" to "oh cool, your legs are like Hiccup's!" I even had one little girl ask me once if I had a pet night fury. They went from being scared of me and my legs, or at the very least concerned for me, to genuinely curious and impressed. While reactions like that did become less and less common over time, they didn't fully go away either. Even today, I occasionally get young kids asking me why I have legs like hiccup. A friend of mine who was born with one arm shorter than the other and without fingers on that side had a similar experience with the movie Finding Nemo. Her disability was a bit more complex than what I described here, and she always found it hard to explain "what happened" to small children, however, after Finding Nemo came out, she was able to simply tell kids "this is my lucky fin, like what nemo has!" and that was enough to take her from someone "scary" to these kids to someone like their favourite characters.

Of course, it's much easier to see the impact positive representation can have on people's perceptions when we're talking about kids media, but it's not exclusive to it either.

When it comes to a minority like the disabled community who are so thoroughly misunderstood by the wider public, misinformation can and does spread easily. What people see and read in the media they consume plays a big roll in how people perceive the real people attached to the stereotypes. We often hear people say "Fiction imitates life" but the reverse can and often is also true, life can imitate and be influenced by fiction, and those of us creating should be mindful of this, especially when we're talking about a group of vulnerable people.

[Thumbnail ID: An illustration of a Great White Shark swimming near the rocky bottom of the ocean, surrounded by silver fish. In the bottom left corner of the image is "The Jaws Effect and what it means for media representation" in big, white bubble text. /End ID]

[mariacallous]

In a product demo last week, OpenAI showcased a synthetic but expressive voice for ChatGPT called “Sky” that reminded many viewers of the flirty AI girlfriend Samantha played by Scarlett Johansson in the 2013 film Her. One of those viewers was Johansson herself, who promptly hired legal counsel and sent letters to OpenAI demanding an explanation, according to a statement released later. In response, the company on Sunday halted use of Sky and published a blog post insisting that it “is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice.”

Johansson’s statement, released Monday, said she was “shocked, angered, and in disbelief” by OpenAI’s demo using a voice she called “so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference.” Johansson revealed that she had turned down a request last year from the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, to voice ChatGPT and that he had reached out again two days before last week’s demo in an attempt to change her mind.

It’s unclear if Johansson plans to take additional legal action against OpenAI. Her counsel on the dispute with OpenAI is John Berlinski, a partner at Los Angeles law firm Bird Marella, who represented her in a lawsuit against Disney claiming breach of contract, settled in 2021. (OpenAI’s outside counsel working on this matter is Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati partner David Kramer, who is based in Silicon Valley and has defended Google and YouTube on copyright infringement cases.) If Johansson does pursue a claim against OpenAI, some intellectual property experts suspect it could focus on “right of publicity” laws, which protect people from having their name or likeness used without authorization.

James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and internet law at Cornell University, believes Johansson could have a good case. “You can't imitate someone else's distinctive voice to sell stuff,” he says. OpenAI declined to comment for this story, but yesterday released a statement from Altman claiming Sky “was never intended to resemble” the star, adding, “We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.”

Johansson’s dispute with OpenAI drew notice in part because the company is embroiled in a number of lawsuits brought by artists and writers. They allege that the company breached copyright by using creative work to train AI models without first obtaining permission. But copyright law would be unlikely to play a role for Johansson, as one cannot copyright a voice. “It would be right of publicity,” says Brian L. Frye, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Law focusing on intellectual property. “She’d have no other claims.”

Several lawyers WIRED spoke with said a case Bette Midler brought against Ford Motor Company and its advertising agency Young & Rubicam in the late 1980s provides a legal precedent. After turning down the ad agency’s offers to perform one of her songs in a car commercial, Midler sued when the company hired one of her backup singers to impersonate her sound. “Ford was basically trying to profit from using her voice,” says Jennifer E. Rothman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who wrote a 2018 book called The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World. “Even though they didn't literally use her voice, they were instructing someone to sing in a confusingly similar manner to Midler.”

It doesn’t matter whether a person’s actual voice is used in an imitation or not, Rothman says, only whether that audio confuses listeners. In the legal system, there is a big difference between imitation and simply recording something “in the style” of someone else. “No one owns a style,” she says.

Other legal experts don’t see what OpenAI did as a clear-cut impersonation. “I think that any potential ‘right of publicity’ claim from Scarlett Johansson against OpenAI would be fairly weak given the only superficial similarity between the ‘Sky’ actress' voice and Johansson, under the relevant case law,” Colorado law professor Harry Surden wrote on X on Tuesday. Frye, too, has doubts. “OpenAI didn’t say or even imply it was offering the real Scarlett Johansson, only a simulation. If it used her name or image to advertise its product, that would be a right-of-publicity problem. But merely cloning the sound of her voice probably isn’t,” he says.

But that doesn’t mean OpenAI is necessarily in the clear. “Juries are unpredictable,” Surden added.

Frye is also uncertain how any case might play out, because he says right of publicity is a fairly “esoteric” area of law. There are no federal right-of-publicity laws in the United States, only a patchwork of state statutes. “It’s a mess,” he says, although Johansson could bring a suit in California, which has fairly robust right-of-publicity laws.

OpenAI’s chances of defending a right-of-publicity suit could be weakened by a one-word post on X—“her”—from Sam Altman on the day of last week’s demo. It was widely interpreted as a reference to Her and Johansson’s performance. “It feels like AI from the movies,” Altman wrote in a blog post that day.

To Grimmelmann at Cornell, those references weaken any potential defense OpenAI might mount claiming the situation is all a big coincidence. “They intentionally invited the public to make the identification between Sky and Samantha. That's not a good look,” Grimmelmann says. “I wonder whether a lawyer reviewed Altman's ‘her’ tweet.” Combined with Johansson’s revelations that the company had indeed attempted to get her to provide a voice for its chatbots—twice over—OpenAI’s insistence that Sky is not meant to resemble Samantha is difficult for some to believe.

“It was a boneheaded move,” says David Herlihy, a copyright lawyer and music industry professor at Northeastern University. “A miscalculation.”

Other lawyers see OpenAI’s behavior as so manifestly goofy they suspect the whole scandal might be a deliberate stunt—that OpenAI judged that it could trigger controversy by going forward with a sound-alike after Johansson declined to participate but that the attention it would receive from seemed to outweigh any consequences. “What’s the point? I say it’s publicity,” says Purvi Patel Albers, a partner at the law firm Haynes Boone who often takes intellectual property cases. “The only compelling reason—maybe I’m giving them too much credit—is that everyone’s talking about them now, aren’t they?”