UK actors’ union Equity is to hold an industrial action ballot for its members working in film and TV on the issue of artificial intelligence protections.
Performers will be asked whether they are prepared to refuse to be digitally scanned on set in order to secure adequate artificial intelligence protections. The ballot will open today (December 4) and run until December 18.
As the ballot is indicative, it will show the level of support the union has for this action short of a strike. But it is not binding, nor would it legally cover members who refuse to be digitally scanned on set – for this, a statutory ballot would need to be held, which would constitute a possible next step for the union.
Equity is currently in negotiations with producers’ trade body Pact to determine a new agreement to set minimum pay, secondary payments (royalties and residuals), self-tapes and hair and make up provisions for the global majority.
However, while artificial intelligence remains a key issue for Equity members, the union says that it is not satisfied with Pact’s engagement on this subject. “Equity is arguing that producers, content owners or any third party should not be using performers’ data for this purpose without informed consent,” said an Equity statement. “But Pact has not responded with adequate contractual assurances on this matter.”
Pact’s response
A Pact spokesperson told Screen: “There are two elements to this: outputs (such as de-aging actors in edit, performance altering, digital replicas, etc), they are not in dispute at all, we’ve agreed a mechanism for consent and payments where due. Then inputs (compiling data to create LLMs [large language models]), where that is done in order to help production (e.g. design lighting, archiving etc), that is not a problem.
”The issue is when you take all that data and you effectively are creating more content with it. None of our members are doing that at the moment. They are not selling it or monetising data in this way. Equity wants future facing protections and we don’t know what the future looks like. We’ve said that we’ll have a dialogue as things develop so that we can have informed discussion about protections and monetisation.
“Of course, members have scanned actors for many years (long before AI was used in production). Producers are well aware of their obligations under data protection law.”
Pact also stated in an email sent to its members: ”The question which Equity is asking its members is: Are you prepared to refuse digital scanning on set to secure adequate AI protections?
“We are concerned that this is vague and does not explain the only outstanding issue clearly (which is about training on data for LLMs and omits the guarantees that producers have agreed to put in place.
“To be clear, this is not about outputs, such as altering an actor’s performance, nor is it about training LLMs for production use.
“We have assured Equity that Pact members are not creating LLMs, and that should any begin to train LLMs on performances to create new content or to sell to third parties for such purposes, that we would come together with Equity to agree commercial terms.”
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