Who is on camera: rights to a face in AI-made advertising

Who is on camera: rights to a face in AI-made advertising

The question "whose face is that" arrives a month after delivery, when the clip is already in circulation. Below are three different questions usually merged into one, three legal sources of an image, and four lines for the contract that cover almost everything.

The question "whose face is that" arrives a month after delivery, when the clip is already in circulation. Below are three different questions usually merged into one, three legal sources of an image, and four lines for the contract that cover almost everything.

The question that surfaces after delivery

You made an advertising clip with a character. The client is happy and the clip has gone into circulation.

A month later comes the question: whose face is that?

And here it turns out you never thought about it. Took it from a generation, it looks good, it works. Where the model got it from is unclear, but it looks like a person.

If the person exists, that is somebody else's image. The complaint will go to the client rather than to you, and then come back to you with interest.

Let us go through it properly: where the boundary is, what is allowed and what to write in a contract.

Three questions about face rights, not one

The subject usually gets reduced to "can AI faces be used". In fact there are three questions, and they are different.

First: whose face is on camera. Does that person exist and did they consent.

Second: whose rights the result belongs to. Who owns the generated material — you, the client or nobody.

Third: what the client has been told. Does he understand that the person on camera is not a real customer.

The first is the most dangerous, the third the most underrated. Let us take them in order.

Whose face: what is not allowed

Celebrities and public figures. In no form, with no caveats, not "in the style of". The right to an image belongs to the person, and fame does not cancel it.

Photographs from the internet. What is found in search belongs to the person depicted and to whoever took it.

Stock photographs as a basis for generation. Even if you have a stock licence, it usually permits using the shot rather than training on it or reworking it into a new face. Licences have to be read, and in most cases the answer is no.

A face resembling a real person. The slipperiest case. If a generated character is recognisably like an existing person, that is his problem with you rather than your good luck.

Whose face: what is allowed

Three legal sources. There are practically no others.

Your own face

A selfie, and you are the advertisement's character. It works for an expert, a coach, an author — advertising with yourself on camera and no shoot.

The limitation: it is your face. Selling the clip to a client, you are putting your own image into his advertising — and that has to be agreed: where, for how long, in what context.

Your own trained character

A consistent character trained by you and stored in your profile. The appearance does not change from frame to frame.

Why this is the best option for commercial work. The character does not exist, which means nobody's rights are infringed. And it is your asset: it can be used across series, sold as part of a service or handed to a client with the project.

What matters here: it must not be trained on somebody else's photographs. Otherwise you are back at the first prohibition.

A fictional hero who does not exist

A person generated in Gen AI or through Cerebrum: such a face does not exist in reality, so there are no third-party rights in the frame.

Important: the face must not resemble a real person — check the result for recognisability, as described below.

For a contractor delivering work to a client that is the fastest safe route: you hand over the clip and do not think about whose face is in it.

A special case: the faces of a client's staff

It comes up constantly and is handled badly unless thought about in advance.

The client brings photographs of his staff and asks for characters to be made from them for advertising.

What is needed here: written consent from each person to the use of their image, including its reworking by AI and its commercial use.

What usually happens: the client says "they do not mind", and that is that. Six months later an employee leaves on bad terms, and his face in somebody's advertising becomes a subject for discussion.

How to do it properly: the client obtains the consents and you record in the contract that he confirms he holds the rights to the material supplied. That is one line, and it moves the responsibility to where it belongs.

The third question: what the client has been told

The underrated point.

Staging is allowed. A false claim is not.

A virtual character showing a product is a normal advertising format. A virtual character saying "I bought it and it helped me" is a false review, because nobody bought anything.

The boundary is simple: the format may be staged, the fact may not. You cannot attribute to a non-existent person an experience that never happened.

That is especially strict in subjects with advertising requirements: medicine, finance, children's products. There a review from a non-existent person is not a stylistic question.

What to do: agree with the client in advance how the text is phrased. Not "I lost ten kilos" but a demonstration of the product and its properties.

What to write in a contract

Four points, one line each. They cover almost everything.

The source of images. The characters are generated and do not reproduce real people, or a face the parties hold rights to is used.

Responsibility for supplied material. The client confirms he holds the rights to everything he passed to you — product photographs, staff, logos.

Rights to the result pass after payment in full. Not at the moment of showing, not at the moment of handing over files — after payment.

Labelling and advertising requirements. Who applies the synthetic content label and who is responsible for compliance with advertising rules. Usually the client, but it has to be written down.

Why that is not bureaucracy. A contract without those lines means that on any complaint the contractor ends up carrying it — simply because there is nobody else.

What to do if the work has already been delivered

A practical case: the clips are in circulation and where the face came from is unclear.

Check. Search for similar images. If the character is recognisably like an existing person, that is a risk.

Change the source. A trained character or a fictional hero generated in Gen AI. Clips are reassembled faster than a complaint is resolved.

Warn the client. Silence here is worse than an awkward conversation: if the problem surfaces by itself, you will be at fault twice.

What the platform offers for working with faces

A fictional character generated in Gen AI or through Cerebrum — the person does not exist, so there are no third-party rights in the frame.

Character training in Gen AI — a consistent character stored in your profile and inserted into any generation.

The legal department — thirteen assistants, including an intellectual property specialist and a corporate lawyer. Reviewing a contract, checking wording, preparing consents. Chat access from the Basic plan.

A caveat specific to this subject: nothing legally significant goes out without a check by a live lawyer. An assistant speeds up the analysis and prepares drafts; responsibility for the wording lies with a person.

Registration is free and opens three days of full Basic access.

Where to start today

One action. Open the last piece of work with a person on camera and answer one question: where did that face come from.

If the answer is "it just generated" — check it for resemblance. If it is "found it on the internet" or "took it from stock", that is the one mistake of all possible ones that costs not a redo but a legal complaint.

It is changed in an evening: train your own character or generate a fictional one. Everything else in this article is about never having to return to this question again.

The legal way to get a face on camera

A fictional character. Generate a person who does not exist in Gen AI or ask Cerebrum — you describe the task in plain words, and the right models are picked automatically.

That removes the article's main problem entirely: no consent is needed, because the person does not exist.

Your own face. You upload your own photograph and become the character in the clips in Gen AI. The rights are yours and there is nobody to argue with.

A trained character. In Gen AI you can train your own character on your own photographs: you assemble a personality once and then use it across every piece of material. Also your asset.

What is not allowed. Training a character on somebody else's photographs.

You pay from the balance on usage, and the price is visible before launch.

What to do if the character has to be permanent

Rights are the first question. The second: where to get a face you can use always.

The three legal sources are listed above. The third is more convenient in practice — your own trained character, and in Gen AI it is implemented like this:

Training the character — you upload your own reference photos and the model is trained on them. The character is then stored in your profile and inserted into any generation.

What that removes legally. The character does not exist, so nobody's rights are infringed. And it is your asset: used across series, handed to a client with the project or kept as the basis of a service.

And a limitation to keep in mind: training must be on your own material. A reference from the internet takes you back to the first prohibition.

What to take on the platform for this task

What to read next

What an AI blogger earns from — where these rights are needed.

An AI account: what gets banned — the other five risks.

AI for lawyers — how to check a contract yourself.

A legal shield for a business — the same question at company level.

AI video generation in 2026 — the full guide to video models.

Also on AI SKILLS