A little more than a year ago, the Hollywood film world was locked in protests by the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, which joined with the writers’ union (Writer’s Guild of America) against the use of artificial intelligence by U.S. film producers.
Today comes the breakthrough, promoted by the union’s own acronym. The California Senate, home state of Hollywood, passes Assembly Bill 1836, a bill that punishes those who use digital replicas of deceased artists in films, television shows, video games, audiobooks, sound recordings and more, without first obtaining the consent of those artists’ heirs.
A “digital replica,” as the law defines it, is a computer-generated, highly realistic electronic representation that is easily identifiable as the voice or image of a person.
The precedents on which the argument at the hearing was based are the four cases in which permission was sought for the use of voice and likenesses with respect to deceased artists: Oliver Reed in 2000 for Gladiator; of Paul Walker for Furious 7; Carrie Fisher for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; and Peter Cushing for Rogue One.
“In each of these four cases, permission to use the voices and/or likenesses of these of these deceased performers was sought and obtained from the families or other representatives of their respective estates,” said attorney Douglas Mirell. “I know of no reason why such consent cannot or should not continue to be sought when deceased, recognizable performers are asked to portray themselves after their deaths. Simply put, the passage of AB 1836 will guarantee this result in the future.”
The new law, it is learned, is primarily intended to help heirs of deceased performers maintain control over these kinds of transactions. SAG-AFTRA therefore cheered the passage of the new regulation, which now only awaits the signature of Governor Gavin Newsom.
SAG-AFTRA represents about 160,000 entertainers and media artists in the 21st century. As stated on their website, “SAG-AFTRA members are the faces and voices that entertain and inform America and the world.”
Photo Credits: Sten Rüdrich, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons
