Your synthetic twin needs a contract, not a one-off payday

Who owns your face once a machine can wear it? Athletes are among the first to be forced to answer, and the answer they pick will matter far beyond the pitch.

The latest case is Cristian Volpato. As Business Wire reported in September, he is using Callandor's AI Rights Registry to create a verified record of consent, permissions, licensing terms and authorized AI uses. Sportsbiz.ai describes it as documenting AI permissions for his likeness, voice and data, with licensed digital twins in the picture.

We think the interesting part isn't the twin. It's the paperwork around it.

The payday is the least important clause

The temptation with any new licensing market is to look at the check. Resist it. A synthetic twin is not a poster or a jersey deal: it can keep working after the contract is forgotten, in contexts nobody imagined when it was signed.

That's why the details matter more than the fee. The law firm Parsons Behle argues that athletes should treat digital replica provisions as a real negotiating point, not boilerplate, and insist on specificity about authorized uses, context, duration and compensation. Read that list again: uses, context, duration, money. Only one of those four is about the payday. The other three are the limits, the expiry and, by implication, the veto.

Our view is blunt: a license for your likeness that lacks an end date, a defined set of uses and a way to say "not this" is not a license. It's a transfer of your identity with better PR.

A registry is a good idea, but it isn't a shield

The law firm Marks & Clerk, in its analysis of the registry, says athletes' movements, voice and biometric data may flow into AI models with no transparency and no standardized royalty system, and that a registry lets them license their identities and collect royalties when AI systems draw on their likeness. That diagnosis is persuasive. Athletes as "the training data for the next generation of digital entertainment" is an uncomfortable phrase, and we don't think it's wrong.

But a registry is a ledger, not a law. It records what you consented to; it doesn't stop someone who never looked at it. And note who else may benefit from the model: clubs and studios could also commercialize video libraries as training material, per the same analysis. Whose consent covers a match archive? That conflict between a player's identity and an employer's footage is exactly where we expect the next fights.

We'd also be cautious about the commercial claims. These are descriptions of a platform and a partnership from the companies and law firms around it, and we haven't seen public evidence of how much money any of this actually generates.

The legal patchwork is the real risk, and it's coming for all of us

In the US, protection depends heavily on where you live and where the content spreads. Tennessee's ELVIS Act covers AI voice replication. California's AB 2602 makes boilerplate digital-replica clauses unenforceable unless the performer had legal representation and the contract clearly describes the use. AB 1836 requires estate consent before a replica of a deceased athlete or performer can be used commercially. Congress, meanwhile, has not passed the NO FAKES Act, according to Parsons Behle.

Notice the pattern: the better laws are essentially pushing toward the contract design we're arguing for, namely specific uses, informed consent and attention to what happens after death. They also lean on the assumption that you have a lawyer. Most people signing away their voice to an app, an employer or a platform won't.

That is the preview. Elite athletes have agents, counsel and registries. Everyone else has a terms-of-service checkbox. If a star footballer wants a verified record of permissions, what does that say about a freelancer whose voice sample sits on a company server?

What to do with this

If you're an athlete, or anyone with a marketable face or voice: never sign a general grant of digital rights. Demand named uses, a duration, a revocation path, and a clause on what happens to the twin when the deal ends or you die. Check older contracts for broad language.

If you're a company, treat AI-generated likeness as a rights-clearance and brand-risk issue, as JD Supra frames it, and not as a creative shortcut.

And if you're a lawmaker, copy the idea, not the celebrity edge case: make expiry and specificity the default for everyone. Volpato's deal looks like a useful experiment. It will be a good one only if the twin can be switched off.