[LE] Using Skyrim Default Dialogue for a Text to Speech program

[ThyMartyrdom]

I recently discovered an awesome looking software called "Lyrebird". It's 'Voice Double' feature claims to "Create a digital voice that sounds like you from a small audio sample." I thought it might be really cool to input default Skyrim NPC voice type dialogue into the program, and create new natural sounding dialogue lines for those voice types. If this would even be possible in the programs current state I don't know. What I was most concerned about would be Bethesda's policy on something like this, if any. I'd be putting Skyrim's voice clips into what is essentially a text to speech program, using them to make new dialogue lines with those voices, and porting the new dialogue back into Skyrim for a mod. Also, one of the questions for the application says "Tell us about the voice(s) you want to synthesize, and confirm that you have their permission" I know getting permission from the voice actors themselves is probably out of the question, and assuming I can't, I was wondering if Bethesda's policy might have anything to say about it. I apologize for the complicated nature of this question, if anyone knows anything about this topic, I'd be grateful for any information they can give me.

Edited February 7, 2020 by ThyMartyrdom

[ThyMartyrdom]

Here's a link to it if anyone else is interested https://www.descript.com/lyrebird-ai?source=lyrebird

[Laubl]

I doubt you can get any permissions for this and while I'm neither a lawyer nor have any experience in this (tho i doubt this is rather unique and not really covered by any laws) you would, like you yourself said, have to break the permissions of the software and while its an interesting application, its definitely not something you should test the ice over.

But as long as it happens on your computer and you dont upload/distribute anything, you can probably test/do whatever you want and tell us about the results.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Laubl

[simtam]

@"If this would even be possible in the programs current state I don't know."

 

Sounds possible - here is a page that I like to share regarding this topic

https://google.github.io/tacotron/publications/speaker_adaptation/

[testiger2]

I don't think you'd explicitly get permissions from the voice actors though.
Look at it this way if you simply extract the voice files, throw them into some audio software and cut and piece them back together thats totally fine and there are mods that do exactly this without getting into legal trouble.

If you would need to get permission for every game asset individially in order to modify it most mods couldn't/wouldn't exist as they do.

 

Plus i'm asking myself this: Aren't you actually creating independent content by using this technology? I mean technically you aren't building on top of existing creations but using is as a template or reference in this case. You are not taking the original files and modify them but rather look (or hear) at the originals and imitate them.
Analogy: If i want to port some kind of Asset from another game into skyrim (say a weapon from WoW) i would get in trouble. But if i use said weapon as a reference and create my own Version of it from scratch that would be allowed. It could look exactly the same but it would still pass as my creation.

 

And please don't use this as legal advice, i just want to share my views on it and i welcome others to join the discussion