Hi John,

If you’re worried about deepfakes or AI’s impact on artists, you need to hear this.

Big Content monopolies are pushing new AI regulations that they say will protect us from deepfakes. But in reality, bills like NO FAKES¹ and No AI FRAUD² will steal artists' agency and their creative voice.³ If these bills pass, media and content companies will issue contracts that could force anyone to sign away their appearance and voice⁴— just like Ursula’s exploitative contract with Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.” Will you take action to stop these corporate-backed Little Mermaid bills and uphold artists’ rights?

The No AI FRAUD Act gives rightsholders, like corporations or trade associations, free reign to sue anyone who does reenactments and parody, depicts a historical figure in a movie or sketch comedy, or makes memes of a celebrity, all under the banner of curbing AI harms. NO FAKES lets anyone claim that any video, recording or photo is an AI deepfake and have it taken down quickly and permanently, with no safeguards against false takedowns or reinstatement requirements. All this means that everyone, especially artists, could be forced into ironclad contracts with giant corporations to “protect” (read: control) our likenesses. Plus, we’re likely to face heavy censorship on social media.

Trade associations and content monopolies are pushing these bills⁵ because they crave total control over artists and their creative work. We’ve already seen how that’s worked out for artists like Prince and Taylor Swift. Prince had to change his name and compared his contracts to slavery,⁶ and a man who’s been terrible to Taylor Swift owns her songs and won’t let her buy them back—she calls it her “worst case scenario.”⁷

But signing our rights away with Little Mermaid bills wouldn’t just negatively impact artists. Any vulnerable person could lose all control of what happens on the Internet with their body, their face, their voice—or all three. Once corporations buy the rights to our likenesses, we wouldn’t have a say in how they use AI to digitally manipulate them. Instead of protecting us from deepfakes, these bills would give corporations a deepfake superpower they can license out to literally anyone. We can’t let that happen.

TAKE ACTION

Sign the petition to tell your representatives you oppose dangerous bills like No AI FRAUD and NO FAKES, because we deserve a future where we, not big corporations, are in control of our art and our agency.

For human dignity in the digital age,

Lia at Fight for the Future

Footnotes:

Fight for the Future, PO Box 55071 #95005, Boston, MA 02205
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