Peppa Pig Owner Demands Child Actors Sign Away Voice Rights to AI

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Voice actors have been waging a fierce battle with the entertainment industry over training AI to synthesize their voices, effectively allowing them to reproduce their likenesses in perpetuity.

Not even underage performers are safe from the encroaching tech. As Deadline reports, the owner of “Peppa Pig,” US entertainment juggernaut Hasbro, is now asking child actors of the beloved children’s animated TV series to surrender rights over their own voices to AI under new contract terms.

Inside sources said it’s part of a much larger trend, with rights holders coercing children into signing over their rights.

Industry advocacy groups were taken aback. A new open letter by the Agents of Young Performers Association (AYPA) has been signed by over 1,000 members of the public, which argues that “any agreement involving a child’s voice should be fully exempt from all AI usage.”

While the letter didn’t call out Hasbro explicitly — it mentions a “major studio who owns the IP for an international children’s franchise producing a long running animated television series” — Deadline‘s sources said the letter was indeed aimed at the conglomerate and its handling of the “Peppa Pig” contracts.

“Where the performer is a child, consent must be treated with the greatest of care,” the letter reads. “Children cannot provide fully informed legal consent and a parent or guardian’s approval should never be used as a blanket license to capture, clone, train, or reuse a child’s voice indefinitely.”

Meanwhile, Hasbro has seemingly been trying to rein in the PR disaster in the making, telling the publication that it was committed to protecting child performers’ rights, while claiming it was looking to approach AI discussions responsibly and transparently.

The company also acknowledged the letter directly.

“Hasbro is aware of the open letter circulating regarding AI clauses in children’s performance contracts,” a spokesperson told Deadline. “We are not able to comment on specific negotiations or contractual arrangements.”

“The protection of child performers is core to who Hasbro is, it’s part of our DNA,” they added.

In short, it’s a worrying sign that major corporations are trying to rope talent, both young and old, into handing over the rights to their voices.

Beyond voice acting, producers are looking to outsource the job of animation itself to AI as well. But as Emmy-winning writer director Jorge Gutierrez, who had signed a deal with Amazon’s MGM Studios for an AI animated series, found out firsthand, the use of the tech has become immensely unpopular, especially when it threatens the roles of human creatives.

Following the announcement, Gutierrez was bombarded with criticism online, with some accusing him of selling out while venting their frustrations.

The director eventually thought better and decided to nix the idea altogether.

More on voice acting: Matthew McConaughey Is Using a Clever Legal Trick to Bludgeon AI Companies

The post Peppa Pig Owner Demands Child Actors Sign Away Voice Rights to AI appeared first on Futurism.

IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Read the 9/11 Interviews

Watch the Interviews