AI company ElevenLabs has announced a licensing agreement with Stan Lee Universe, securing the rights to use the late Marvel legend’s image and voice for commercial use.
As reported by Variety, this deal with Stan Lee Universe, the joint venture between Genius Brands International and POW! Entertainment, will add Lee’s likeness to the ElevenLabs Iconic Marketplace, a collection of celebrity likenesses that companies can license for commercial use, which means that companies might soon be able to feature a digitally resurrected Lee in their films or commercials.
ElevenLabs has also announced the “Stan Lee Book of the Month Club”, which uses a generative likeness of Lee to narrate audiobooks, alongside the ability to generate his likeness within templates inspired by comic book panels through a visual generator.
“Stan always believed in meeting his fans where they were: in the pages of a comic, at a convention, or in a quick on-screen cameo,” said Chaz Rainey, a lawyer and board member for Stan Lee Universe, in a statement. “This partnership is a way of continuing that. Fans have always told us that when they read his comics, they hear the words in Stan’s voice, and now, thanks to ElevenLabs, we can make that a reality.”
Unfortunately, this hasn’t sat well with Lee’s actual fans, who took to social media to express their displeasure with the idea. Many noted that this was just another way to take advantage of Lee to make money, mirroring the elder abuse allegations that marred Lee’s life months before his death in 2018. Thanks to the backlash, the press release on the ElevenLabs website announcing the news has now been removed, and searches for him on the Iconic Marketplace also turn up nothing.
As Lee once famously wrote, with great power comes great responsibility, so it remains to be seen how ElevenLabs will proceed with their acquisition of his likeness now that fans have made their displeasure known. As one disgruntled fan so aptly put it, “legends should be remembered with soul and humanity, not turned into digital puppets for corporations forever”, so maybe they should just let him rest in peace.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
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