No. I am talking about rent-seeking.

Oh! I see. We are starting from very different places on looking at the situation. I see one’s likeness as a part of their identity that they have a fundamental right as a human being to agency over. I place it in a similar category to one’s labor - can exercising one’s agency over their body really be considered “rent-seeking”?

I see the uses of AI “plagiarism engines” in arts and creative trades by major corporations as just another way to alienate workers from their labor and exploit them.

You could argue to what a degree landlords or Elon Musk are engaged in rent-seeking.

By definition, I’d think.

Or maybe the VFX artists can do it on their own. These guys work.

Major respect for VFX artists, stage engineers, and all the trades under IATSE. They do huge amounts of very skilled work. They are the foundation on which all modern media rests and I’m glad that a greater share of them have unionized.

Likeness rights are a clear example, though. … Imagine in the near future. Some famous person licenses their likeness for a show, game, movie. Maybe the producer hires an unknown actor that is then digitally altered into the famous person, like a more advanced version of Gollum. … The famous person does nothing. They might be dead, while the rights-owners still collect license fees.

Here, I think, is a bit that I do agree with you on. One’s likeness should never be able to be owned by anyone else. Die and it’s public domain. Just like the ridiculous copyright terms that Disney secured, the idea of one’s likeness outlasting their life, let alone someone else having agency over it is preposterous.

The scenario that you propose is part of why unions exist in the first place. SAG-AFTRA hasn’t been doing amazingly on the subject but, they’re definitely doing more than about any union that I’ve seen in relation to AI impacting a trade and making it more susceptible exploitation. I would suggest that in your scenario, both actors (and the producer) are acting in an unethical manner. The famous actor is pulling up the ladder behind them, not giving the junior actor the opportunity to gain prestige in their trade. The junior actor is participating in exploitation that should be grounds to strike the production. The producer is using the licensed likeness as leverage to pay and credit the junior actor less.

The situation should not happen and, if SAG-AFTRA allows it, actors should form a new union that treats all of its members when respect.