One 2023 contract splits a digital replica into two kinds

The figure or the record

SAG-AFTRA members ratified the 2023 TV/Theatrical Agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on 5 December 2023, by a certified vote of 78.33% to 21.67% on 38.15% turnout, ending a 118-day strike. The agreement is retroactive to 9 November 2023 and runs through 30 June 2026. The union's own summary of the tentative agreement describes the artificial-intelligence article as the contract's first dedicated coverage of digital replication, splitting a performer's simulated voice or likeness into two defined categories rather than treating 'AI use' as one undifferentiated issue.

What the documents establish

An 'Employment-Based Digital Replica' is created with the performer's physical participation, in connection with a specific engagement, to portray them in footage they did not actually perform; its creation requires 48 hours' notice and clear, separately signed consent, and using it outside the picture it was made for requires fresh consent and bargaining at the time of that new use, with limited exceptions for another identified project agreed at the same time. An 'Independently Created Digital Replica' is a synthetic asset built to pass as a specific, identifiable performer in a role, without that performer being employed on the production at all; the summary states this requires consent and bargaining before use, in a signed writing describing the intended use, with pension-and-health contributions attached. Both forms of consent survive the performer's death unless the performer limited that explicitly, passing to an authorised representative or, failing one, to the union.

Scope and caveats

These terms bind signatory theatrical and television productions under the Producer-SAG-AFTRA agreements; they do not extend automatically to non-signatory or foreign productions, and the AI provisions themselves only took effect 90 days after the AMPTP received notice of ratification, a separate clock from the 9 November 2023 date the wage terms use. Compensation for in-picture replica use is pegged to the production days the performer would otherwise have worked, estimated in good faith by the producer, and residuals attach only if the replica remains in the finished work in a way that would have earned them for an in-person performance. None of this document establishes how many productions have actually invoked these clauses.

What to watch

Editorially, a useful check is whether a vertical-drama signatory agreement inherits these definitions by cross-reference or rewrites its own, since a vertical production's short shoot days and fast turnaround are exactly the conditions the 48-hour notice and per-use consent rules were written to slow down.

• Is a given synthetic performer an Employment-Based or an Independently Created Digital Replica under this contract's definitions, and does that change who must consent?
• Was consent for a specific new use obtained at the time of that use, or only once, at initial employment?
• Does the production estimate replica-displaced work days in good faith, or default to a flat day rate regardless of scene count?

The contract's own two-category structure is the detail most often lost when 'AI protections' are summarised as a single headline, and it is the distinction a vertical-drama rate card has to preserve if it borrows from this agreement.