Tom Brady Warns Lawsuit Against 2 Comedians Over AI-Generated Special Impersonating Him

Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady has issued a warning against two comedians who used AI-generated photos of him in a comedy special.

According to Yahoo! Sports, Brady's lawyers demanded in a cease-and-desist letter sent to comedians Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen to "immediately remove the aforementioned use of Mr. Brady's name, image, voice, persona, and likeness" in the video that used an AI-generated photo of the former NFL star in the stand-up comedy show.

The comedians revealed on their podcast "Dudesy" that Brady's lawyers sent them the cease-and-desist letter after seeing the hour-long special titled "It's Too Easy! A Simulated Hour-Long Comedy Special," which featured an AI version of Brady doing stand-up and telling jokes.

The letter claimed that the two comedians "misappropriated" Brady's name, voice, persona, and likeliness to advertise and promote their podcast and Patreon page.

There were other accusations included in the letter, such as presenting Brady in a "false light," as well as possible defamation and copyright infringement if the two comedians failed to meet the requirements stated.

Earlier this week, the two comedians discussed the lawsuit in a YouTube episode, saying they had already removed the video but noted that it was only an impersonation of Brady.

They said the video clearly stated it was a "simulated" version of what would happen if Brady were to do comedy.

Tom Brady AI Comedy Special

Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen explained that the impersonation was AI-generated and "clearly satirical in nature." The two noted that it was similar to impersonations of celebrities on other comedy specials.

Kultgen said he thinks they were dealing with a "First Amendment, freedom of speech type s--t," CBS Sports reported. He added that the piece was "obviously a parody."

"This is what all impressionists do. You watch hours of tape of that person to get their mannerisms and stuff like this down. It's literally the same," Kultgen noted.

Kultgen also clarified that the monologue was not delivered in Brady's voice but was done in an "AI approximation" of the former NFL quarterback's voice.

However, Brady's attorneys claimed that the special "blatantly violated" the seven-time Super Bowl champion's rights and demanded the removal of the video.

PEOPLE reported that Sasso and Kultgen still intend to release more AI-generated content of public figures despite the legal challenge the two are currently facing.

AI Lawsuits

Since the rise of AI, lawsuits have been filed against several companies and individuals. Microsoft and OpenAI, including GitHub, are facing class action motions.

TechCrunch reported that the companies are accused of violating copyright law by allowing Copilot to repeat the code of licensed snippets without providing credit. Copilot is a code-generating AI system trained on billions of lines of public code.

Two companies behind the AI art tools, Midjourney and Stability AI, are also facing a legal case alleging they infringed on millions of artists' rights by training their tools on web-scraped images.

Getty Images sued Stability AI for reportedly using millions of images from its site without authorization to train Stable Diffusion, an art-generating AI.

The issue is mainly on AI's tendency to replicate images and texts, among many others, without infringing copyright. There have been image-hosting platforms that banned AI-generated content due to fear of legal repercussions.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: Tom Brady Doesn't Turn Down Un-Retiring For Dolphins, Has "Many Friends On The Team" - From Pat McAfee