A digital replica needs consent and payment
The Screen Actors Guild strike, which began in July 2023, ended on 9 November; the agreement was ratified on 5 December. The 2023 television and theatrical contracts introduce the digital replica of a voice or likeness and divide it into three kinds, and separately define a synthetic performer as a wholly digital figure resembling no recognisable performer and voiced by nobody.
Why it matters
Here the right to one's own voice and face was for the first time set out not as a principle but as a working procedure with deadlines, signatures and rates. Cloning stopped being a question of whether it is allowed and became a question of on what terms and for how much.
The three kinds of replica: one created in connection with employment, one created independently and used in a picture the performer did not work on, and one of a background actor. Consent must be clear and conspicuous, separately signed or initialled, cannot be buried in standard terms and cannot be blanket: it is given for a named project with a reasonably specific description of the intended use. The producer must give at least 48 hours notice before a scan. Death does not end consent, and for a deceased performer consent comes from the estate or from the union. Time spent creating a replica is work time; use in the same picture is paid on the number of days the performer would have worked in person, and residuals follow the replica. What the record does not claim. Neither the ratification percentage nor the day the strike began is given here: the first was found in no primary document that was read, and the second is given only by month in the studio annual report. The union's site refuses both automated requests and the browser pane, so the terms were read in an archived copy of an explanatory document captured in September 2024 rather than in the text of the agreement itself, which is why the confidence is lower.