Cate Blanchett has launched RSL Media, a non-profit organisation aimed at empowering artists and individuals to control how AI companies use their creative work, voices, and likenesses without permission. The initiative comes amid what Blanchett describes as the "unchecked and unregulated" growth of AI technologies.
What is RSL Media?
RSL Media plans to introduce a "human consent standard" that allows individuals to formally declare permissions for AI systems to use their identities and creative assets. This includes films, music, voices, and facial likenesses. Users can classify use as "allowed", "allowed with terms", or "prohibited". A free public registry is set to launch in June, enabling users to verify identities, register works, and encode permissions into machine-readable signals for AI systems. Consent ID reservations are available immediately through the organisation's website.
Celebrity Support
The initiative has garnered significant support from numerous prominent entertainment industry figures, including George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Helen Mirren, and Steven Soderbergh. They view it as an urgent and essential solution to AI's current practice of "stealing" creative content.
RSL Media builds upon an existing "Really Simple Licensing" framework and emerges amidst growing criticism from artists and writers regarding AI companies' use of creative material. This has been highlighted by incidents such as Scarlett Johansson's accusation against OpenAI for using a voice "eerily similar" to her own.
The organisation aims to provide a clear and enforceable mechanism for creators to protect their rights in the digital age, ensuring that AI development respects human consent and intellectual property.
