Before a Brand Clones Your Face or Voice: A Creator Permission Checklist

01

What exactly is the brand allowed to create?

Define the replica itself before discussing where the brand can use it.

A digital replica is a realistic, identifiable synthetic version of a person’s voice or visual likeness that can create or materially alter a performance. Avoid relying on vague labels such as “AI version,” “digital double,” or “synthetic media.”

Creation and use should be separate permissions. A brand might be allowed to produce one dubbed version of an existing video without receiving the right to generate new performances indefinitely.

1. List the permitted elements: face, full body, voice, accent, speaking style, expressions, gestures, lip sync, translation, dubbing, or combinations of them.
2. Identify every source photo, video, recording, scan, script, and performance that may be used.
3. Name the model, provider, production vendor, and model version when known.
4. State whether the brand receives only approved exports or also receives source recordings, embeddings, reusable voice models, weights, avatars, or other generation tools.
5. Prohibit combining your identity with another person’s face, body, voice, or performance unless separately approved.

02

Which products, scripts, and claims should you approve?

Require affirmative written approval of each product, script, material variation, and final output before publication.

Review the literal words and the overall impression. A synthetic performance can imply that you used, preferred, or achieved results from a product even when the script avoids saying so directly.

FTC guidance says endorsements must reflect honest opinions and experiences, and material brand relationships should be clearly disclosed. Do not approve synthetic first-person experience, testimonial, comparison, or performance claims that you could not truthfully make.

1. Name the product, service, offer, price, discount, call to action, comparison, disclaimer, and intended audience.
2. Approve wardrobe, setting, actions, expressions, emotional tone, age presentation, pitch, cadence, accent, and people shown alongside you.
3. Review each translated script and final-language output. YouTube notes that automatic dubbing can introduce translation, pronunciation, accent, dialect, proper-name, and voice-matching errors.
4. Reject “deemed approved unless you object.” Record an approver, version, date, and explicit decision.
5. Require new approval when a script, claim, product, visual context, language, or final performance changes materially.

03

How should distribution, duration, and compensation be limited?

Write the license as a specific media plan rather than “all media, worldwide, forever.”

List every permitted channel and account. Distinguish organic posts from paid ads, boosting, whitelisting, dark posts, programmatic placements, connected TV, retail media, audio, out-of-home, email, websites, apps, packaging, and in-store displays.

Set a start date, end date, territory, language, and renewal process. The U.S. Copyright Office has recommended licensing digital-replica rights rather than transferring them outright and has discussed duration limits to prevent licenses from operating like permanent assignments.

1. Identify whether retailers, affiliates, resellers, franchisees, agencies, or other partners may distribute the work.
2. Define when paid delivery must stop, when new outputs must stop, and whether expired ads may remain in a non-promoted archive.
3. Require a new signature for renewal instead of automatic renewal.
4. Itemize compensation for replica creation, production, media use, additional outputs, new territories or languages, renewal, exclusivity, retraining, and extended retention as applicable.
5. Define portfolio rights: who may display the work, where, after what launch date, and whether confidential scripts, tools, or campaign information must be excluded.

04

What limits should cover training, vendors, security, and deletion?

Permission to make an ad should not silently become permission to improve a general model or build a reusable stock performer.

Choose explicitly between no training and narrowly limited training needed to create the approved replica. Prohibit use in general-purpose, vendor-wide, advertiser-wide, or third-party models unless that use has its own informed permission and compensation.

The agreement should also control who can access the replica and what happens after expiration or a security incident.

1. Allow access only to named personnel and vendors; prohibit other sublicensing or transfers.
2. Require reasonable access controls and prompt notice of leakage, compromise, suspicious access, or unauthorized generation.
3. Assign responsibility for containment, investigation, platform reports, takedown requests, and preservation of evidence.
4. Require deletion or return of source files, models, credentials, working files, and vendor copies by a stated deadline.
5. Request written deletion confirmation and disclosure of any backup-retention period or technical exception.
6. State whether acquisition, bankruptcy, vendor replacement, or sale of the campaign rights terminates permission or requires your fresh consent.

05

Who handles labels, records, and takedowns?

Assign disclosure duties and maintain one permission record for every synthetic output.

YouTube requires disclosure when realistic altered or synthetic content makes a real person appear to say or do something they did not do. Sponsorship disclosures may also be required. Specify who applies platform labels and who checks spoken, on-screen, caption, description, and translated disclosures.

A complete record helps distinguish an authorized export from a suspected misuse. Platform detection can assist, but it should not replace your own agreement, files, and approval history.

1. Save the signed agreement, amendments, replica identifier, source-asset identifiers, scripts, final exports, and approval messages.
2. Record the product, channel, account, market, language, term, paid or organic status, disclosure requirements, vendors, compensation, and renewal status.
3. Preserve hashes or stable file identifiers when available, plus takedown requests and deletion confirmations.
4. Use a licensed-element rights manifest to connect each output to its permitted elements and restrictions.
5. Document how AI-assisted outputs were generated and reviewed through an AI creative provenance workflow.

06

Which terms should you refuse or take to counsel?

Pause before signing any clause that could transfer control of your identity, authorize undefined future performances, or leave you without practical recourse.

Qualified counsel is especially important when publicity or biometric laws, union agreements, minors, estate rights, employment status, regulated products, indemnities, exclusivity, assignment, international use, or post-death rights may apply. California, for example, has specific rules affecting some digital-replica provisions, but requirements vary by jurisdiction and circumstances.

Your risk tolerance may justify declining sensitive categories entirely rather than trying to manage them through approvals.

1. Refuse blanket rights covering all products, scripts, territories, languages, media, technologies, or future uses.
2. Escalate perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, or unrestricted sublicensable rights and any ownership or assignment of your persona or replica.
3. Refuse fabricated personal-experience claims and unapproved political, sexual, medical, financial, gambling, tobacco, weapons, or other reputation-sensitive uses.
4. Escalate undefined category exclusivity, broad indemnities, post-death use, automatic renewal, and use after a brand or vendor is sold.
5. Do not accept unrestricted alteration, indefinite retention, unapproved training, derivative identities, or waivers of injunctions, audit rights, attribution, or remedies without legal advice.

07

How can ATIYO support the permission record?

ATIYO can preserve the creative context around approved synthetic outputs, but it is not a substitute for legal advice, contract review, or platform enforcement.

Creators and teams can organize brand context, briefs, source assets, iterations, approvals, restrictions, and reusable learnings in one creative-strategy workflow. Attach the signed scope and record which script, output, language, vendor, and term correspond to each approval.

ATIYO does not connect to ad accounts, buy media, calculate ROAS, or independently know campaign results. Media performance remains in the ad platform; ATIYO preserves creative context and learnings. Review ATIYO’s Terms separately when deciding what information to store.