Vote Yes On Locking Artist’s Voices In Contractual Seashells Like The Little Mermaid
We are living under a sea of AI-generated slop, where AI deepfakes and non-consensual intimate content abound. Congress, a self-interested creature, naturally wants to create protections for themselves, their favorite celebrities, and their wealthy donors against online impersonation. But until now, visions of so-called AI protections have been limited. From my lair, I’ve seen how Big Content might use congressional panic about AI abuse to make a many-tentacled power grab. With the NO FAKES and No AI FRAUD Acts, it’s delicious to report that we have done exactly that.
Inspired by my seashell-prisons, in which I trap the sweet voices of mermaids looking to rise, these bills would let corporations and trade associations like mine control not only the tongues of young musicians, actors, or authors—but their whole face and body. It has been incredibly lucrative for Big Content to monopolize other intellectual property rights, so that we could prevent Prince from singing his pesky “art” under his own name and block Taylor Swift from buying back her early recordings from powerful enemies. It is far past time that new and more invasive rights are created, ones that allow us to make AI-generated deepfakes of artists singing the songs that we like, dressing in the way we desire, promoting the causes we approve, and endorsing the presidential candidates that we want to endorse.
Since teenagers, abuse survivors, and artists started suffering from AI deepfakes, our leaps toward victory have been enlivened by the sirens we’ve convinced to testify on behalf of concepts like consent, the struggle of artists for respect and dignity, and the importance of human art. They have unwittingly obscured our true aims with the beauty of their voices, and the results are glorious, netting legislation that would lure not only artists, but anyone at all, into crashing on the rocks.
If these bills pass, the vulnerable and desperate will also be lured into trading rights to their voices and faces for almost nothing—a month’s rent or a week’s groceries. A paid electricity bill. And for that we will amass vast libraries of captive voices and faces that we can license out to whomever will pay, to use as broadly and vaguely as we desire. AI-generated intimate content, political advertising, hate speech—sources of vast wealth currently being tapped by small-time influencers and foreign regimes. Many will pay richly to AI-generate another to deliver their message. This sea witch fully intends to insert herself in such a growing market.
And oh, the markets! The No AI FRAUD Act is particularly clever in its moves to kill alternative markets and competition for us, the biggest players in Content. With copious lawsuits, we will be able to smite any who dare attempt reenactments and parody, who depict a historical figure in a movie or sketch comedy, who make memes of a celebrity. After all, how dare they? Did they think the First Amendment was written for their drivel?
Even better, we will be able to sue social media platforms, too, for hosting such content. Although, social media companies have historically made moves to aggressively filter or shut down content they could be sued over. Ultimately, they may proactively smite our competition on our behalf—becoming an even more honed instrument for our supremacy. Either way, we win.
Censorship, you say? Perhaps. But if most of the human faces that are displayed online are the ones we own or sell licenses to, the dollar signs would fill a sea. And, we would own the faces of each person not only during their life, but these laws would let us own them for 70 years after their deaths.
NO FAKES in its turn is an eloquent symphony of conformity. It allows us to claim that any video, photo, or recording we do not like is an AI deepfake and have it removed from the Internet forever. The bill offers no recourse to anyone we might—oopsie—censor with our richly programmed armies of bots and filters. There is no mechanism to put content back online or punish a big content company for lying about a takedown request—well, unless you want to face down our armies of lawyers in federal court, that is. This one is all about who has the most money and power, darlings.
With these bills, we will tighten our many-tentacled stranglehold over arts and culture, ensuring that only those we profit from succeed—and that these choice humans need act only minimally once we have secured their AI likeness. No more pesky frailties or artistic preferences to contend with. No more divas unless we deepfake them. This is why we must make our utmost effort to pass NO FAKES and No AI FRAUD— before creators and the public catch on and discover that these bills don’t fight deepfakes, they solidify control of them amongst the most powerful players while obliterating consent.
We must act swiftly to purchase politicians and parade our most convincing messengers—the artists themselves—to demand Little Mermaid laws. These poor unfortunate souls are already falling into the grips of NDAs, brand protection agreements, other assignable rights, noncompetes, existing IP law, and everything else our lawyers can brew up. We just need one final, strong brew to cement control, and then artists’ ability to speak and appear publicly or online will be safe in our contractual seashells. There will be a new era of peace and harmony, as artists and creators won’t be able to agitate and contribute to conflict as pesky “activists”. They will be quiet and only sing when told to. And, our pretties will be able to sing their hearts out even if they become sick, ugly, impoverished, or die—because we hold their AI replicas.
After all, a star need not be human to shine, and if the human artist cannot speak without our permission, no one will know the difference anyway!
Ursula the Sea Witch, best known for cutting one of the hottest ever sub-marine deals with Mermaid Ariel to trap her voice in a seashell along with other poor unfortunate souls, was recently promoted to the C-suite of the Under-The-Sea Content Trade Association. There, her leadership focuses on expanding her pioneering work with Ariel, aiming to lock voices away without any true love’s kiss to set them free by 2026—and for complete, non consensual-yet-legal AI impersonation of all artists under contract by 2027. Ursula the Sea Witch is also the evil(er) alter-ego of Lia Holland, Campaigns and Communications Director at digital rights organization Fight for the Future.