Do AI "Actors" have more protection than human Actors in the UK right now?
- Hannah Marquez
- Jul 6
- 3 min read
Back in November, I wrote about protecting your image and voice from AI misuse, and gave you five things to do right now to protect yourself. Since then, protections are still not moving quickly enough for human actors.
An AI "actor" called Tilly Norwood, created by the studio Particle6, is now set to star in her first feature film and under UK law, she is very likely better protected than you are when it comes to the use of her likeness.
Why Tilly Is Protected?
Particle6 owns the copyright in Tilly Norwood, the same way a photographer owns copyright in a photograph. They can trademark her name. If someone copies her likeness and profits from it without paying, they have a straightforward legal claim: copyright infringement, plain and simple. No need to prove they were harmed or that they lost money. The law treats her as a created work, because that's exactly what she is.
Why You Are Not
The UK has no equivalent right protecting a real performer's face, voice, or likeness.
Copyright is no help, because copyright protects works, not people. Your face was never authored. So if an AI trained on your old showreel and generated a brand new "performance" of you, one you never gave and never agreed to, where do you stand right now? This is how I understand it at the moment:
Passing off. You'd need to prove you already have public goodwill in your name, that audiences would believe you endorsed the project, and that you suffered real damage. This gets easier the more famous you already are. If you're a well known name, you have a real, arguable case. If you're building your career, you have very little to stand on.
Performers' rights. These give you some control over performances you actually gave. They do not clearly stop someone generating a synthetic performance you never gave in the first place.
Trademark. You can register your own name, but UK courts have been reluctant to let real people monopolise "character exploitation" the way a studio can with an invented one.
Contract. Currently your strongest real protection, and exactly why the AI consent wording I shared back in November matters so much. If it isn't in writing, it isn't agreed.
None of this is new. The UK has never had a specific right protecting your face or voice, that gap has been sitting there for decades, patched over by 'passing off' and little else. What's changed is who can now exploit the gap. A convincing unauthorised copy of a performer used to require real skill and budget and AI has removed that barrier. The same result now takes a fraction of the cost and no special skill at all, which means the vulnerability that was always there is finally being tested at scale.
Is Anything Changing?
Slowly. The Government has acknowledged this gap publicly, and a consultation specifically on introducing a "personality right" for performers is expected this summer. Until it becomes law, we are left a little high and dry!
What To Do With This
Nothing here changes the advice I gave you in November, it reinforces it. Keep your AI consent wording separate from general releases. Get everything in writing, before any capture takes place. And stay informed, because "I didn't know that could happen" won't help you after the fact.
This guide is for information only. It is not legal advice. For contracts or disputes, speak to your agent, Equity, or a solicitor. For practical, up-to-date union guidance on AI including contracts, read Equity's AI Toolkit for performers: equity.org.uk
Comments