Equity last week used the annual Trades Union Congress conference to again call on the UK government to introduce a new personality right that would help actors and other performers protect their voice and likeness in the context of AI.

In a motion submitted at the conference, the performer union said that unauthorised AI-generated digital replicas “undermine performers’ income and personal autonomy and pose a threat to the sustainability of careers in performance”.

And while existing copyright and data protection laws might restrict unauthorised digital replicas to an extent, it’s currently “uncertain” how these laws apply “in this context” and therefore they “do not provide adequate protection”.

Equity General Secretary Paul W Fleming added that, while personality rights are crucial for his union’s members, everybody would benefit from stronger legal protections that would stop the unapproved use of voice or likeness.

He explained, “Everyone stands to benefit from a personality rights framework. It’s important to stop deepfakes, it’s important to give people rights and dignity over content that’s created, and to allow our members to protect themselves against the growing storm of AI”.

For a generative AI model to output content that replicates a person’s voice or likeness, it will need to be trained with existing content that contains that voice or likeness, whether images, video or audio.

In theory that training process will involve copying copyright-protected works and exploiting personal data, which arguably obliges the AI company to get permission from both the copyright owner and the individual. However, as Fleming notes, there are potential gaps and issues when it comes the obligations of AI companies.

Some AI businesses argue that they can make use of copyright protected works without getting permission from the copyright owner based on loopholes in copyright law in certain countries.

And even if the AI company does get permission from the copyright owner, the individual performer who appears within an image, a video or a sound recording doesn’t necessarily own the copyright in that work.

In many countries there is another strand of law call personality rights or publicity rights that provides additional protection around voice and likeness. And in some countries these rights are now being reviewed and revised to ensure they apply with AI-generated content.

The UK government has already committed to review the law around digital replicas, which should put Equity’s proposal for new personality rights in the UK formally on the political agenda.

Last month a group of actors – including Nicola Coughlan, Hugh Bonneville and Matt Lucas – came together to call on the UK government to introduce new laws in this domain, specifically to ensure people can protect their voice in the context of AI.

They were all backing a petition set up by Peter Caulfield, who has launched a campaign called Save Our Voices Now.

He told The Guardian, “The bottom line is the government is allowing AI companies to steal and profit from artists’ voices without their consent. They are also allowing criminals to use AI to clone people’s identities and threaten everyone. We need to use our real voices now to stop it”.