Virtual Actor - Legal Issues

Legal Issues

Critics such as Stuart Klawans in the New York Times expressed worry about the loss of "the very thing that art was supposedly preserving: our point of contact with the irreplaceable, finite person". More problematic, however, are issues of copyright and personality rights. Actors have little legal control over a digital clone of themselves. (In the U.S.A. for instance they must resort to database protection laws in order to exercise what control they have. (The proposed Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act would strengthen such laws.) An actor does not own the copyright on their digital clone unless there was the creator of that clone. Robert Patrick, for example, would have little legal control over the liquid metal cyborg digital clone of himself created for Terminator 2.

The use of a digital clone in the performance of the cloned person's primary profession is an economic difficulty, as it may cause the actor to act in fewer roles, or be at a disadvantage in contract negotiations, since the clone could be used producers of the movie to substitute for the actor in the role. It is also a career difficulty, since a clone could be used in roles that the actor would, conscious of the effect that such roles might have on their career, never accept. Bad identifications of an actor's image with a role harm careers, and actors, conscious of this, pick and choose what roles they play. (Bela Lugosi and Margaret Hamilton became typecast with their roles as Count Dracula and the Wicked Witch of the West, whereas Anthony Hopkins and Dustin Hoffman have played a diverse range of parts.) A digital clone could be used to play the parts of (for examples) an axe murderer or a prostitute, which would affect the actor's public image, and in turn affect what future casting opportunities were given to the actor. Both Tom Waits and Bette Midler have won actions for damages against people who employed their images in advertisements that they had refused to take part in themselves.

In the USA, the use of a digital clone in advertisements is requireed to be accurate and truthful (section 43(a) of the Lanham Act and which makes deliberate confusion unlawful). The use of a celebrity's image would be an implied endorsement. The New York District Court held that an advertisement employing a Woody Allen impersonator would violate the Act unless it contained a disclaimer stating that Allen did not endorse the product.

Other concerns include posthumous use of digital clones. Barbara Creed states that "Arnold's famous threat, 'I'll be back', may take on a new meaning". Even before Brandon Lee was digitally reanimated, the California Senate drew up the Astaire Bill, in response to lobbying from Fred Astaire's widow and the Screen Actors Guild, who were seeking to restrict the use of digital clones of Astaire. Movie studios opposed the legislation, and as of 2002 it had yet to be finalized and enacted. Several companies, including Virtual Celebrity Productions, have purchased the rights to create and use digital clones of various dead celebrities, such as Marlene Dietrich and Vincent Price.