Hollywood's follow-up AI labor agreements show the first contract was just the opening move

The follow-up round of AI-specific provisions negotiated into subsequent Hollywood labour agreements, building on the initial AI consent-and-compensation framework established in earlier SAG-AFTRA negotiations, has continued expanding the scope of protections to address gaps that the original agreements left unresolved - particularly around background and crowd-performer digital replicas, posthumous use of a performer's likeness, and the specific question of how AI-generated performances trained on a consenting performer's likeness should be compensated when used in ways the performer did not specifically anticipate at the time of consent. The negotiating dynamic has been shaped significantly by the continued maturation of AI video-generation tools, since the specific capabilities studios and AI-video companies can offer - and therefore the specific use cases labour negotiators need to address - have kept evolving even within a single negotiation cycle, forcing both sides to negotiate protections for capabilities that did not fully exist or were not yet commercially deployed when the original framework agreements were signed. Studios and streaming platforms have generally accepted the expanded protections as a cost of doing business rather than fighting them as aggressively as some had predicted, reflecting a broader industry recognition that the reputational cost of being seen as exploiting AI to undermine performer livelihoods has proven higher than the direct cost of the compensation and consent provisions themselves, particularly as high-profile public backlash against perceived AI exploitation in entertainment has continued to generate negative press coverage for studios seen as pushing too aggressively. India's film and television industry, which does not have a comparable union structure with the negotiating leverage that SAG-AFTRA has exercised in Hollywood, has watched the evolving US labour-agreement framework with interest as a potential template, even as Indian performer unions and guilds have generally lagged in developing comparable AI-specific consent and compensation frameworks of their own. What to watch: whether the expanded provisions address the gaps satisfactorily or whether further negotiation rounds become necessary as AI video capability continues advancing, whether any Indian performer union or guild begins developing a comparable AI-consent framework, and whether any high-profile dispute over unauthorised AI use of a performer's likeness tests the enforcement mechanisms of the expanded agreements.

Original source: The Hollywood Reporter