An open letter promoted by the Association of Agents of Young Artists has nearly 1,000 signatures from actors, talent agents, parents and other supporters, to condemn contractual clauses that force children to give up their voices for use by artificial intelligence. As reported DeadlineHasbro has carried out this practice with the children’s series Peppa Piga brand she has owned since 2019.
The letter released by the group has denounced, without naming names, that a major studio that owns the intellectual property of an international children’s franchise and that produces an animated television series, has forced children’s voice actors to authorize AI to use their voices to produce commercial content with the brand. According to the statement, the studio has responded to those who protest this with an inflexible attitude.
“When the interpreter is a minor, consent must be treated with the utmost care,” those who sign the letter have assured. “Minors cannot give fully informed legal consent, and a parent or guardian’s approval should never be used as blanket authorization to capture, clone, train, or reuse a minor’s voice indefinitely.”
The board of directors of the association has informed Variety that your letter “addresses the universal problem of companies supporting the use of AI in contracts for minors, clauses that agents frequently challenge” and that “there should be no question about the use of child actors in any type of AI production, whether film, recorded media or images.” Although the association did not reveal that Hasbro is the company behind the practice, the company has assured the same media outlet that it was aware of the letter and that “the protection of child artists is fundamental” to their identity.
The letter also demands that the voices of child actors be left out of any clause related to the use of artificial intelligence: “No child should have their future professional identity shaped by an AI model created before they were old enough to understand its consequences.” And he adds that children’s voices “should not become a permanent commercial asset before they have the legal and personal capacity to decide for themselves.”
Following the reaction from the company after the dissemination of the letter, the agents of child dubbing actors have asked studios and producers to include “no AI” clauses in their contracts. The association calls for studios to be explicitly prevented from using artificial intelligence to capture, clone, train or reuse performers’ voices.
There was already knowledge that artificial intelligence was being used with certain products from the renowned children’s series. In early June, at Axios’ AI+NY Summit, Hasbro AI Studio CEO Bertie Thomson and ElevenLabs Director of Partnerships Dustin Blank chatted with an AI replica of the pig. The talk was precisely about the licensing of a group of Hasbro characters to the artificial intelligence audio company. In her turn to speak, Peppa’s AI assured that there were “special rules” to ensure that the voice sounded good. On the occasion, Hasbro reported that the character’s voice was an “authorized use developed specifically for demonstration purposes with the appropriate permissions.”