Digital Replicas And The Future Of Brand Talent.
Synthetic Media Moves From Effect To Contract.
From Effect To Contract
When a holographic Tupac Shakur performed at Coachella in 2012, it was a striking visual effect. A decade later, the use of a person’s digital replica is no longer just a one-off stunt; it is a formal business transaction governed by contracts and legal agreements.
The key questions have shifted from “Can we do this?” to “Who has the authority to approve it? Who benefits financially? And what are the long-term implications?” The stakes have risen from novelty to matters of brand trust and legal liability.
The widely reported, but later clarified, story about Bruce Willis selling his image rights to an AI company illustrates this shift. While his team denied a “blanket sale,” a digital replica was still used in a commercial for the Russian company Megafon. This proves that a market for commercial replicas has emerged, allowing a person’s digital replica to work even when they are unavailable due to health, travel, or language barriers. This reality is what brands must now grapple with.
Digital Replicas Versus Deepfakes: The Legal And Ethical Divide
The technology behind a digital replica is often the same as that used for a deepfake, but the intent and legal standing are vastly different.
A deepfake is an unauthorized, often deceptive, synthetic creation. It can be used to mislead or defame.
A digital replica is a licensed and intentional version of a person, created with explicit consent and governed by a contract.
One is a form of theft, while the other is a rental of identity. This distinction is critical and is the first place regulators will look to determine liability.
This divide is clear in how different brands and creators use the technology. For instance, Lay’s partnered with soccer star Lionel Messi to allow fans to create personalized messages from his digital replica — an authorized, consented use meant to engage fans. At the same time, creators like “Deep Tom Cruise” gained massive followings by producing polished parodies that profit from a living person without permission. While one is an approved campaign and the other parody, both highlight the need for clear standards around provenance, payment, and disclosure.
The New Rules Of Engagement
The legal landscape is catching up fast. SAG-AFTRA’s 2023/24 agreements include explicit language about consent, compensation, and control for digital replicas. Performers must give informed consent for scans and replicas and are paid for their use.
Similarly, California has passed bills to restrict unauthorized digital replicas, and the European Union’s AI Act requires creators to label AI-generated and altered content. Regulators are clear: if you use a digital replica, you must label it, log it, and pay for it.
Because audiences are skeptical of synthetic media, building trust is paramount. One way is through content provenance standards like C2PA/Content Credentials. This technology embeds tamper-evident metadata into a file, showing how it was created, which models were used, and what edits were made. This allows platforms and users to verify the origin of the content with proof, not just claims.
Digital Replicas Are Not Stock Content
A digital replica carries identity, history, and economic value. Treating it like a stock image or a logo is a mistake that can quickly erode credibility. For brands, agreements for digital replicas must be detailed: defining scope of use across contexts, geographies, and languages; setting pricing structures for renewals; and requiring human approval for sensitive or new use cases.
For living talent, representation must ensure future choices are protected. “Yes forever” is neither sustainable nor ethical.
The financial benefits of digital replicas are obvious: one capture session can generate global output across multiple markets. But those benefits only hold if audiences see purpose, not deception. Quality must be high enough to avoid distrust, and the legal framework around consent, compensation, and labeling must be robust. Otherwise, a brand may save on production costs but spend down its most valuable asset: credibility.
Bottom Line
Consent. Control. Provenance
The use of digital replicas has moved from experiment to commercial reality. For a brand to use them successfully, it must build trust on three foundations:
Consent: Explicit, specific, revocable approval bound to the digital replica itself, not just a paper contract.
Control: Audit trails that log how the replica is used, including models, prompts, and approval history.
Provenance: On-screen disclosure and verifiable content credentials proving the replica’s origin.
Handled this way, digital replicas become a reliable part of brand infrastructure. Mishandled, they trade efficiency for reputational collapse.
