License or sell your likeness? Why a licence is almost always the smarter choice

If you are a model, influencer or athlete getting a digital twin made, sooner or later a contract lands on your desk. Then comes the question that decides everything: are you renting out your likeness or selling it? Legally that is the difference between a licence and an assignment. Short answer: almost always choose a licence. It sounds like a technicality, but it determines who gets to decide what your digital face does.

Licence or assignment: the difference

With a licence you remain the owner of your likeness: your face, voice, body and way of moving. You give a brand permission to use it for a defined purpose, a fixed period and a fee. When the licence ends, the right ends.

With an assignment you hand over the rights themselves. The new owner then decides what happens to your digital version, often with no end date and with no further say for you.

The money is real

Early this year TikTok star Khaby Lame closed a 975 million dollar all-stock deal with Rich Sparkle Holdings. The company received exclusive commercial rights to his brand, including an AI twin that uses his voice, likeness and mannerisms for livestreams and multilingual content. Deals like that are exceptional, but they show that your likeness is an asset with real value. That is exactly why you want to know who will control it.

Why a licence is almost always better

• You keep control. A licence expires and can be limited per use. In practice an assignment is very hard to undo.
• You earn per use. A licence ties payment to concrete use: channel, market and period. An assignment usually means one payment, however often your twin is used afterwards.
• The law is moving this way. In the US the NO FAKES Act is still a proposal and has been stalled in the Senate since late September. Its text shows the direction: the right to your digital replica could not be assigned during your lifetime, only licensed, and a licence could last no more than ten years (five for minors).
• New York is already there. Since 19 June 2025, brands and model agencies there need written consent before creating or using a model's digital replica, stating purpose, scope, pay and duration. Agencies may not bury that consent in the representation contract.
• The Netherlands has no dedicated right yet. You rely on portrait rights, the GDPR and tort law. For a portrait not made on commission, you can block publication if you have a reasonable interest, and commercial use without consent is a classic example. A clear licence avoids that argument afterwards. More in who protects your face from AI.

Where it goes wrong: the small print

Reuters recently spoke to fifteen model agency directors and reviewed more than a dozen shoot contracts from companies including Diesel, Calvin Klein and L'Oréal. They contained clauses allowing the brand to swap a model's face using AI, create a digital clone without extra pay and use images to train AI. That is how an ordinary photo shoot quietly turns into an assignment. Read every shoot contract for AI clauses, even when nobody mentions a digital twin.

Checklist: what a likeness licence should cover

1. Purpose and scope. Which media, channels and markets? E-commerce only, or campaigns too? May images be edited or aged?
2. Layers. Which parts are licensed: image, voice, movement? Voice calls for separate consent.
3. AI training. May your data be used to train models? Default: no, unless agreed and paid for separately.
4. Term. A fixed end date and what happens to existing content afterwards.
5. Exclusivity. Can you work for other brands in the same category?
6. Fees per use. Tie payment to channel, market and period. Never "including all future applications".
7. Approval. The right to review output in advance, especially if your twin speaks or endorses.
8. Sublicensing. May the brand pass your twin on to agencies or other parties?
9. Termination and deletion. When can you end it in case of misuse? Are your scans and data deleted afterwards?
10. Labelling. Who handles AI disclosure under Article 50 of the AI Act? See our piece on the labelling obligation.

When can selling make sense?

Sometimes an assignment is defensible, for instance when you become a shareholder in the company receiving your rights. Khaby Lame kept a 49 percent stake in his deal. Always have such a deal reviewed by a lawyer who knows intellectual property and portrait rights. Look above all at what happens when the partnership ends.

How ADAPT approaches this

At ADAPT the talent keeps ownership of their identity. We work with licences, never assignments. Use, layers, term and fees are set per campaign. Talent managers stay in charge of the deal and Adapt Legal checks the terms against portrait rights, the GDPR and the AI Act.

For agencies: how a digital twin works for your talent.

This article is general information, not legal advice.