AI, Influencers & UGC: Who Owns Your Likeness When Brands Train On You?
Influencers and creators spent years building a face, voice, and vibe that brands want to borrow. Now AI lets those same brands:
- Train on your content,
- Clone your style and voice,
- Generate “you-ish” ads without you ever stepping in front of a camera.
The questions:
If a brand trains AI on your UGC, who owns what?
When does it become illegal impersonation or false endorsement?
And what can you do about it in contracts before problems start?
This guide breaks it down in practical, non-theoretical terms.
🎭 Likeness vs Content vs Contract: Three Different Legal Beasts
Influencers often mix up three distinct rights:
| 🧩 Piece | What It Protects | Who Usually Owns It | Why It Matters For AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copyright in the content | The video, photo, script, thumbnail design, caption text. | Usually the creator or whoever shot/commissioned it under contract. (Law Offices of Craig Delsack) | Controls copying and derivative works based on your actual content. |
| Right of publicity / likeness | Your face, name, voice, persona, mannerisms used for commercial gain. (Blank Rome) | You (subject), under state law; sometimes inherited or assigned. | Controls using “you” to sell things, including some deepfakes and avatars. |
| Contract/license with brand/platform | Whatever you agreed they can do: repost, cut, edit, train AI, create digital doubles. | Defined by your deal and by platform Terms. | Can expand or limit what they can legally do with both your content and your likeness. |
When brands start training AI, all three overlap:
- They copy your videos → copyright.
- They extract your voice, style & face → right of publicity.
- They point at your contract and say “we have a license to do this” → contract.
If you don’t shape that contract, you’re relying on a messy patchwork of default laws.
🧠 Typical AI + Influencer Scenarios (And What’s Actually Going On)
| 🎬 Scenario | What The Brand/Platform Is Doing | Main Legal Issues |
|---|---|---|
| Style-transfer ads | Training an internal model on your past campaigns to generate new scripts, captions, or visuals “in your style” but without your exact face/voice. | Copyright (derivative works), right of publicity if it’s recognizably “you,” contractual scope. |
| Synthetic influencer / avatar | Building a digital double (face/voice) to appear in new campaigns, with or without your involvement. | Right of publicity, deepfake/digital replica laws, contract consent. (Crowell & Moring – Home) |
| AI voiceover cloned from UGC | Using audio from your videos to train a voice model that then narrates new ads. | Right of publicity (voice), specific state “voice cloning” prohibitions, contract. (Crowell & Moring – Home) |
| Internal “creator brain” | Agency trains a model on many influencers’ content to generate briefs, hooks, and angles that feel like top creators. | Copyright aggregation, trade secrets, potential publicity issues if single creators are identifiable. |
| UGC reposting with AI tweaks | Brand takes whitelisted UGC, uses AI to re-edit, re-caption, or up-res for new placements. | Scope of UGC license, “moral rights” in some jurisdictions, FTC endorsement truthfulness. (Federal Trade Commission) |
The more the result looks or sounds like you specifically, the more you’re in right-of-publicity / deepfake territory, not just copyright.
👤 The Right Of Publicity: Your Face Is Not Free Training Data
In the US, there’s no single federal “likeness law.” Instead, most states recognize some form of right of publicity:
- Protects your name, image, voice, likeness, and sometimes gestures/mannerisms from unauthorized commercial use. (Blank Rome)
- Traditionally used by celebrities, but in many states it applies to anyone whose identity is exploited for commercial gain.
Recent developments:
- Several states have passed or expanded digital replica / deepfake laws – especially around pornography, elections, and entertainment. (NCSL)
- Tennessee’s ELVIS Act explicitly targets AI-powered voice cloning without consent. (Crowell & Moring – Home)
- California passed bills (AB 2602 and AB 1836) limiting contract terms that allow replacing performers with digital replicas without informed consent and protecting deceased performers’ likenesses. (The Verge)
- A proposed federal NO FAKES Act would create nationwide protections against unauthorized digital replicas of a person’s image/voice. (O’Melveny)
For influencers, that means:
Even if a brand owns the video you shot for them, they don’t automatically own the right to create an AI double of you unless you clearly gave them that right.
📺 Lessons From Actors’ AI Fights (SAG-AFTRA)
Creators don’t have a union like SAG-AFTRA, but their AI battles are a blueprint.
SAG-AFTRA’s latest TV/theatrical contracts and AI policy work:
- Define “digital replicas” of performers.
- Require separate informed consent for creating and using digital replicas, with bargaining over compensation and scope. (SAG-AFTRA)
- Limit reuse of scans beyond agreed projects and give performers some say when their scanned likeness is repurposed.
If you translate that into influencer contracts, you’re looking for clauses that:
- Separate normal usage (posting your video ad) from AI usage (training models, creating avatars).
- Require additional consent and pay for any AI or synthetic use of your likeness.
📜 FTC, Fake Endorsements & AI Doubles
On top of publicity law, you’ve got consumer protection law:
- The FTC’s Endorsement Guides require that endorsements be truthful, not misleading, and clearly disclose material connections between brands and influencers. (Federal Trade Commission)
- The FTC has also adopted a rule targeting fake reviews and testimonials, including purchased or fabricated endorsements. (Federal Trade Commission)
If a brand:
- Uses an AI clone of you to “say” something you never said, or
- Generates a synthetic influencer strongly implying it’s you endorsing a product,
they’re drifting into false endorsement and deceptive advertising territory. (ISBA)
You can use that in negotiations: brands and agencies don’t just risk your lawsuit—they risk regulatory scrutiny if they “fake you” too aggressively.
🔗 Platform Terms: What Did You Already Give Away?
Platforms sit between you and the brand:
- You retain copyright in what you post, but
- You grant the platform a broad license to host, distribute, and sometimes sub-license or use content to develop new features. (Law Offices of Craig Delsack)
Examples:
- Major platforms’ terms typically say they can use your content to operate and improve their services; some are starting to explicitly mention AI features and labeling of AI-generated media, especially around deepfakes. (TikTok Support)
- TikTok, for instance, requires labeling of realistic AI-generated media and has policies around deceptive AI content and misusing someone’s likeness. (TikTok Support)
Two important points for influencers:
- The platform’s license to itself does not automatically give brands the right to train AI on your UGC. That usually still needs a direct license from you or a separate program.
- If the platform begins offering AI tools that remix UGC, terms may allow them to feed your content into their own models unless you opt out.
So your main levers are still:
- Your contracts with brands/agencies, and
- How much you rely on platform-native deals vs off-platform, direct agreements.
📑 Influencer Deals: Clauses That Matter In The AI/UGC Era
When you sign a UGC or influencer agreement, watch for AI hooks hiding in familiar language.
The “Who Owns What” Table
| 📜 Clause Area | Red-Flag Wording | Safer / Creator-Friendly Wording |
|---|---|---|
| Grant of rights | “You grant us an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free right to use your content and likeness in any media now known or later developed.” | Limit to specific content (“the Deliverables”), specific platforms, defined campaign durations; carve out AI training and digital replicas unless separately negotiated. |
| Derivative works / modifications | “We may edit, adapt, and create derivative works from your content for any purpose, including training machine learning models.” | Allow reasonable editing for placement, but exclude AI training, cloning, or synthetic use of your likeness unless expressly agreed with additional compensation. |
| Use of likeness | “You consent to our unrestricted use of your name, image, voice, and likeness in connection with our business.” | Narrow to identified campaigns and media, and state that AI-generated replicas, synthetic voices, avatars, or lookalikes require separate written consent and compensation. |
| UGC whitelisting | “We may use any UGC featuring our product that you post on social media in perpetuity.” | Limit whitelisting to human-edited placements, not AI training; require opt-in if UGC will be used as training data or as reference for synthetic influencers. |
This is how you keep “run this ad longer” from turning into “we own a digital you forever.”
🔬 When Is AI Use Acceptable… Or At Least Tolerable?
Not every AI use is a disaster. There’s a spectrum.
| 🟢 Probably OK (With Decent Contracts) | 🟡 Risky / Needs Negotiation | 🔴 Big Red Flag |
|---|---|---|
| Using AI to auto-caption your video, improve audio, or clean up lighting in your approved content. | Training a model on your campaigns to suggest hooks/scripts internally, but not generating your face/voice. | Using your past content to train a model that speaks in your cloned voice or shows an AI version of your face in new ads without new consent. |
| Minor AI edits for formatting (aspect ratio, resizing) within agreed placements. | Letting a brand’s in-house model generate “inspired by you” copy that is still clearly branded as theirs, not as your endorsement. | Synthetic livestreams, endorsements, or pornographic deepfakes using your likeness without consent. |
| AI remixing for private creative ideation that never leaves the agency side. | Platform-level use of your UGC to power generic AI discovery tools, depending on terms and jurisdiction. | A brand or tool presenting an AI clone as if you personally endorse something you never touched. |
Your goal in negotiations is to codify where green ends and yellow begins, and to make anything in the red zone off-limits without a serious separate deal.
🧭 Practical Playbook For Influencers & UGC Creators
Here’s how to convert all of this into actual leverage.
| 🎯 Goal | Practical Moves |
|---|---|
| Keep control of your face/voice | Insist on separate consent for any AI, synthetic, digital replica, or cloning use. Add a line that you do not consent to training AI on your likeness or voice except as expressly stated. |
| Ensure you get paid if they want a digital you | Treat AI replicas like a new shoot, not a free add-on: day rate equivalents, usage fees, rev share, or minimum guarantees. Use SAG-style language as inspiration (digital replica = separate negotiation). (SAG-AFTRA) |
| Avoid “gotcha” licensing language | Redline any “in any media now known or later developed” phrases that don’t carve out AI. Narrow “perpetual” rights or at least tie them to non-AI, non-synthetic usages. |
| Have a plan if someone crosses the line | For unauthorized clones or deepfakes, think in layers: platform reports (deepfake / impersonation tools), DMCA where there’s copying, right-of-publicity and deepfake laws (especially in states with specific statutes), and FTC/false endorsement angles when a brand is involved. (NCSL) |
| Future-proof your brand | Keep a tracking doc of where you granted what rights; be extra careful with “UGC whitelisting,” “eternal usage,” and AI feature opt-ins inside creator platforms and brand portals. |
The reality is, AI makes it easier and cheaper than ever for brands to simulate your presence without you in the room. The law is catching up, but your contracts are still your best defense.
If you treat your likeness and voice as a separate SKU—with its own price and conditions—you’re not just protecting yourself legally. You’re telling every brand and agency in the room:
“My face and my voice are not just content. They’re assets. If you want to train machines on them, that’s a different deal.”
And that’s exactly the mindset you need in the AI + UGC era.