Nearly 1,000 actors, talent agents, parents and others have signed an open letter organized by the Agents for Young Performers Association this week condemning contract clauses that mandate children sign their voices over to be used by AI — a practice Deadline reported Hasbro has done with “Peppa Pig.”
The letter from the collection of talent agents, which came out Monday, alleges that a “major studio who owns the [intellectual property] for an international children’s franchise producing a long running animated television series” has demanded child voice actors agree to allow their voices be used by AI to produce “commercial assets within their franchise.” For agents who protest, the letter alleged, the studio has responded with “an attitude of ‘take it or leave it.’”
“Where the performer is a child, consent must be treated with the greatest of care,” the signatories wrote. “Children cannot provide fully informed legal consent and a parent or guardian’s approval should never be used as a blanket licence to capture, clone, train, or reuse a child’s voice indefinitely.”
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“Our letter addresses the universal issue of companies supporting the use of AI in contracts for minors, clauses that are frequently being contested by agents,” the AYPA’s board told *Variety *in an email, refusing to name the studio in question. “There should be no question of using child actors in any form of AI, whether film, recorded media or images.”
Hasbro, which purchased the rights to the “Peppa Pig” franchise in 2019, did not respond to Variety‘s immediate request for comment, but it told Deadline it was aware of the letter and that the “protection of child performers is core to who Hasbro is” and “part of our DNA.”
“As industry standards around AI continue to evolve, we are committed to engaging with this issue in a responsible and transparent manner,” a spokesperson told Deadline.
The letter also demanded that children’s voices should be exempt from any clauses surrounding AI use, writing that “no child should have their future professional identity shaped by an AI model created before they were old enough to understand its consequences.”
“Their voice should not become a permanent commercial asset before they have the legal and personal capacity to decide for themselves,” the signatories wrote.
“Peppa Pig” debuted in 2004 and has since become an international phenomenon, with films, albums, merchandise and theme park experiences. The show, which airs on Channel 5 in the U.K. and Nick Jr. in the U.S., installed “The Adventures of Paddington” writer Adam Redfern as its showrunner in March.
An AI version of Peppa Pig already exists — in some capacity.
During Axios’ AI+NY summit earlier this month, Hasbro AI Studio CEO Bertie Thomson and ElevenLabs’ head of partnerships Dustin Blank spoke to an AI demo replica of the famed British cartoon during a conversation about the licensing of several Hasbro characters to the AI audio firm for commercial purposes. During the demonstration, the AI “Peppa Pig” said there were “special rules to make sure we still sound right, act right and play safely.”
It was unclear which Peppa actor’s voice was licensed for the replica (Harriette Cox, whose representative did not respond to an immediate request for comment, took over the role last year). ElevenLabs did not respond to an immediate request for comment, but the firm has touted the participation of characters’ original voice actors in the licensing agreement. The AYPA declined to comment on the AI replica of Peppa Pig.