Celebrity deepfakes are coming into advertising.
Among the most recent entries: The Russian telecommunications company MegaFon published a commercial last year in which a simulacrum of Hollywood legend Bruce Willis helps defuse a bomb.
And last month, a promotional video for machine learning company Paperspace Co. featured talking faces from actors Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio.
None of these celebrities ever spent a moment filming these campaigns. In the case of Messrs. Musk, Cruise, and DiCaprio, they didn’t even agree to support the companies in question.
All digital simulation videos were created using so-called deepfake technology, which uses computer-generated renditions to make Hollywood and business celebrities say and do things they never actually said or did.
Some of the ads are broad parodies, and the intertwining of the digital with the analogue may not, at best, fool an observant viewer. Still, the increasing adoption of deepfake software could ultimately profoundly shape the industry while raising new legal and ethical questions, experts say.
Authorized deepfakes could allow marketers to feature huge stars in ads without actually having to appear on set or in front of cameras, reducing costs and opening up new creative possibilities.
But unauthorized, they create a legal gray area: celebrities may struggle to stem the spread of unauthorized digital reproductions of themselves and the manipulation of their brand and reputation, experts said.
“We struggle enough with fake information as it is. Now we have deepfakes that look increasingly convincing,” said Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy.
US lawmakers have begun addressing the deepfake phenomenon. In 2019, Virginia banned the use of deepfakes in so-called revenge porn, Texas banned them in political campaigns, and California banned them in both. Last year, the US National Defense Authorization Act mandated the Department of Homeland Security to produce annual reports on threats posed by the technology.
However, experts said they are unaware of any laws specifically addressing the use of deepfakes in commercials.
Celebrities have had some success suing advertisers for unauthorized use of their images under so-called publicity rights, said Aaron Moss, chairman of the litigation practice at the law firm Greenberg Glusker. He cited Woody Allen’s $5 million settlement with American Apparel in 2009 over the director’s unauthorized appearance on a billboard promoting the daring clothing brand.
Both Paperspace and reAlpha have had attorneys review the videos and take steps to ensure viewers understand that the celebrities depicted do not actually endorse the companies’ products or have a hand in making the videos, the companies said.
The Paperspace video originally appeared on its own website and was intended to educate users about deepfake technology, said Daniel Kobran, chief operating officer.
reAlpha’s Musk video contained “strong disclaimers” that identified it as satire, said Christie Currie, chief marketing officer. For example, reAlpha released a similar video last year showing a replacement version of the Tesla inc
Chief sat in a bubble bath and explained the concept of Regulation A+ Investing or Equity Crowdfunding.
Musk’s first video went live days after reAlpha launched a public offering under Regulation A+ in 2021. The video eventually garnered 1.2 million views on YouTube and sparked active interest in reAlpha from “22,000 people in 83 countries,” Ms Currie said in an email. She added that the company avoided directly linking the video to its fundraising efforts.
“Of course there’s always some risk involved in any kind of parody,” Ms Currie said in an interview, “but in general it shouldn’t be, as long as it’s intended to be educational and satirical and disclaimers exist, so unless you’re pushing a transaction it shouldn’t be an issue.” .”
“Many of these companies intentionally go as close to the line as possible to almost troll the celebrities they target.”
The likelihood that someone of Mr Musk’s caliber would sue a startup over a deepfake video is slim, and those companies might decide the risk is worth the considerable publicity it would generate for them, Mr Moss said.
“A lot of these companies are intentionally going as close to the line as possible to almost troll the celebrities they target,” he said.
But the ease of creating deepfakes means some celebrities could soon be inundated with ads showing their unauthorized but very compelling likeness, Mr Moss said. It would be “death by a thousand cuts” if celebrities tried to stalk every small business or individual creator using the software, he added.
At the same time, the language in contracts written years before the technology was introduced can be vague enough to allow marketers to use existing footage to create new deepfake videos. Because of this, actors, athletes and other celebrities will eventually begin to include clauses prohibiting any new such uses of their likenesses in any commercial contracts they sign, said Carnegie Mellon’s Mr. Lightman.
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment on the videos.
Bruce Willis’ ad recently prompted reports that the actor had signed a deal giving the rights to his image to Deepcake, a digital production company based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Deepcake said the reports were inaccurate.
In 2020, Deepcake was hired by MegaFon and worked with other ad agencies and production companies to develop the deepfake campaign under a now-expired deal between Mr. Willis and MegaFon, according to a Deepcake spokesperson. Deepcake was not a party to the contract, the spokesperson noted, referring requests for more details to MegaFon.
MegaFon representatives have not responded to multiple requests for comment. Mr. Willis’s publicist did not respond to questions about whether he had a contract with MegaFon. In March, Mr Willis’ family announced that he had been diagnosed with the brain disorder aphasia and was retiring from acting.
Companies most commonly request celebrity deepfake videos to use internally for training, communications, parties or other purposes — but not for advertising, said Daynen Biggs, owner of Slack Shack Films, which produced the Elon Musk videos. A customer recently requested a video of former President Donald Trump playing Mr. Potter, the wealthy villain in the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Biggs said.
“Deepfake technology has the potential to be extremely harmful,” Mr. Biggs said. “We always make sure that what we create is not harmful or fraudulent, but a fun and entertaining way of getting a message across.”
However, experts and practitioners say that deepfake technology will become increasingly popular in advertising because it can help brands and agencies produce more content faster, while eliminating many of the costs associated with production.
“In six months we created 10 completely different creatives and concepts with digital Bruce Willis working with different directors,” said the Deepcake spokesperson. “A production like this with a real actor is hard to imagine.”
write to Patrick Coffee at [email protected]
Corrections & Enhancements
Machine learning company Paperspace recently published a promotional video about deepfake technology on its own website. In a previous version of this article, the company name was misspelled as Paperscape on two occasions. (Corrected on October 25.)
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