SAG-AFTRA Reaches An Agreement With Replica Studios On A.I. Voice Replication In Games

While last year’s Hollywood strike ended for a lot of the industry, the fight is still going for some, namely voice actors in video games.

Negotiations have been slow-going between SAG-AFTRA and game studios regarding the IMA (Interactive Media Agreement), the contract under which all voice actors in games work.

A recent agreement though outside of IMA talks may get things going again. Announced in a blog post, SAG-AFTRA has reached an agreement with Replica Studios around A.I. voice replication in games.

Replica Studios claims to be creating “the world’s greatest and leading ethical library of A.I. powered voice actors,” and this new deal with SAG-AFTRA comes with assurances actors are definitely looking for.

Like full transparency and consent requirements from the actor on what their voice will be used for and what it’ll be saying.

It also includes minimum terms and conditions for performers contracts, and requires that performers are given the chance to opt-out of their voice being used in future work, if they should choose.

Executive director and chief negotiator at SAG-AFTRA Duncan Crabtree-Ireland says that in this deal, “we have achieved fully informed consent and fair compensation when it comes to the use of our members’ voices and performances.”

“We are proud to work with Replica in leading the way to make it easy for these companies to access SAG-AFTRA’s world-renowned talent in an ethical manner that ensures consent and fair compensation for their contributions. This agreement also paves the way for other companies to follow their lead.”

For Replica’s part, chief executive officer Shreyas Nivas said “Replica is proud to partner with SAG-AFTRA to introduce an ethical approach to the emerging use of generative A.I.”

“We are excited by the new opportunities this opens up for world-leading AAA studios who can now access the benefits of Replica’s A.I. voice technology while knowing that talent is recognized and compensated fairly for the use of their likeness.

Our voice actor agreements ensure that game developers using our platform are only accessing licensed talent who have given permission for their voice to be used as a training data set, as opposed to the wild west of A.I. platforms using unethical data-scraping methods to replicate and synthesize voices without permission.”

Replica Studios have already worked with other developers like Squanch Games, Hangar 13, Crytek and more.

So having this deal that, at least on paper seems to be a win for performers, seems to be a step in the right direction.

Because the reality of today’s world is that A.I. will continue to become more and more ingrained in our entertainment, our technology’s.

If we can’t keep it at bay forever, the best we can do, especially in any artistic medium, is make sure it is used ethically, responsibly, and in a way that doesn’t remove the human element.

Hopefully this really is a step towards that.

Source – [SAG-AFTRA]