William Saunders

Australian footballer Cristian Volpato has licensed his digital likeness to a California company called Callandor. The agreement covers his appearance, voice, biometric profiles and performance data. The company plans to create AI-generated versions of Volpato for advertising, fan experiences and other commercial opportunities. According to reporting published this weekend by The Guardian, Callandor received exclusive licensing rights to those digital representations. The arrangement gives the company an opportunity to commercialize his likeness while helping the athlete control which uses receive approval. Think about what this means. An athlete can now appear in advertising without attending the filming. They can speak languages they don't actually speak. They can participate in promotional campaigns in multiple countries simultaneously. And they can potentially interact with thousands of fans through an authorized synthetic version of themselves. That's commercially interesting. But I think the more important development is the attempt to establish a formal relationship between the person, the technology and the people using it. Because AI makes creating someone's likeness remarkably easy. Obtaining their permission is a separate matter. Consider a company that wants to use a famous athlete in an advertisement. Traditionally, it negotiates a licensing agreement. The agreement specifies compensation, duration, permitted uses and restrictions. The company then produces the advertisement. With AI, the company may be technically capable of creating the advertisement before approaching the athlete. That reverses the practical sequence. The ability to create something arrives before the authority to use it. And the resulting content may be convincing enough that consumers assume the athlete participated. Volpato's arrangement attempts to address that problem through licensing. But there are questions worth examining. What happens when an athlete wants to withdraw permission? Does the license cover future AI models? Can the company sublicense the likeness to other businesses? Who approves individual campaigns? Can the athlete prohibit particular industries or political messages? How are royalties calculated? And how can someone verify that a particular AI-generated advertisement was actually authorized? That final question is particularly important. A licensing agreement between two parties doesn't automatically provide a reliable signal to everyone who encounters the content. A fraudulent advertiser could still create an unauthorized imitation. The existence of an official synthetic twin doesn't make every other synthetic representation legitimate. This is why the industry needs ways to connect individual pieces of generated content to verifiable permissions. There's also an important distinction between an exclusive commercial license and ownership of someone's identity. People should understand precisely which rights they're granting and which rights they retain. The Guardian reports that these licensing businesses are still testing commercial opportunities. We don't yet know how profitable synthetic endorsements will become. But the underlying question already matters. When someone's face and voice can be reproduced by software, who gets to decide how those reproductions are used? My position is straightforward. The person represented should have meaningful control over commercial uses of their identity. That control should be specific, understandable and enforceable. And when an AI-generated representation is authorized, there should be a practical way to establish that authorization.

A footballer can only shoot so many ads a year, and a licensed AI copy of him has no such limit. Cristian Volpato, a 22-year-old Socceroo who plays for Sassuolo, signed in mid-September with California's Callandor, which received exclusive rights to his digital likeness, voice, biometric profiles and performance data, Guardian Australia reports. Callandor will land brand deals, take a cut and help restrict content he hasn't approved. Co-founder Michael Fisk told the Guardian, "A synthetic twin could be used 24-7, year-round by brands. Assuming it's approved, right?" Callandor was founded in February, and its campaigns are in the pilot phase. Neymar licensed his AI likeness in June, and earlier this month the AFL told its gambling partner Sportsbet to stop using AI images of players without their consent. Player contracts with major Australian leagues make no mention of AI, per the Guardian, which also says it is unclear whether brands will pay as much for a clone as for the real player. Exclusivity is the product here, because one approved version makes it easier to object to all the unapproved ones.