In March 2024, a commercial model in Los Angeles received a portfolio update from a brand she’d shot with back in 2019. The images weren’t new campaign stills. They were synthetic variations of her face, generated by an AI model trained on the original shoot photos. The release form she signed five years earlier contained a single sentence that made this entirely legal: “Photographer and Client shall have the perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free right to use, alter, modify, and reproduce the Model’s likeness in any medium now known or hereafter devised.” That last clause — “hereafter devised” — is doing extraordinary work. It is the contractual bridge between a standard editorial shoot and the AI training datasets now generating synthetic models from real human faces. This account is a composite drawn from multiple interviews conducted by this publication with working commercial models in the Los Angeles market between January and April 2024. The model requested anonymity because her agency contract contains a confidentiality clause prohibiting public discussion of client relationships. The release language quoted above appears verbatim in forms collected from three separate shoots reviewed by this publication.
The modeling industry runs on documents drafted for a pre-digital media landscape. Model release forms — the contracts that govern how a model’s image can be used after a shoot — were standardized in the 1980s and 1990s, when “perpetual usage” meant a brand could reuse a print advertisement in future issues of the same magazine. Nobody drafting those contracts imagined that a model’s photographed likeness could be scraped, vectorized, and fed into a generative AI system to produce infinite new images. But the broad, permissive language that brands and agencies built into those releases — designed to give clients maximum flexibility for future media — has become, accidentally or not, a blanket authorization for synthetic media production. Models signing releases today aren’t just consenting to their face appearing in a campaign. In many cases, they are consenting to their face becoming a training asset for systems that may eventually replace them.
The Contractual Pipeline: From Shoot Day to Training Dataset
Trace the life of a model release form through the commercial photography supply chain and the problem becomes clear. On a typical shoot day, a model arrives on set and gets handed a one-page document — sometimes printed on the production company’s letterhead, sometimes the brand’s, occasionally the photographer’s. The release grants usage rights to one or more of these parties. In most standard releases, the language is sweeping. The model grants the right to use their “name, likeness, image, portrait, photograph, voice, and biographical information” in connection with “advertising, promotion, marketing, packaging, sales, and trade” across “all media now known or hereafter created, throughout the universe, in perpetuity.”
“Throughout the universe, in perpetuity” is not hyperbole. It is standard contract language. The Authors Guild, in its guidance on AI best practices for creative professionals, has identified precisely this category of broad, retroactive consent as the mechanism by which creative work is absorbed into AI training pipelines without additional compensation or control. The Guild’s position is that commercially available foundational AI models have been trained on unlicensed creative work without compensating creators or giving them any control over downstream usage. The parallel for models is exact: a release form signed for a specific campaign becomes the legal basis for training a synthetic model on your face, with no additional payment, no notification, and no ability to opt out after the fact.
Once the shoot wraps, the raw images move into the client’s digital asset management system. From there, they may be licensed to third parties, archived for future campaigns, or — increasingly — bundled into datasets sold or shared with AI training operations. Several stock photography agencies have entered into licensing agreements with AI companies to provide training data. If a model’s release form grants the photographer or agency the right to sub-license the images — which most do — those images can enter an AI training pipeline without the model ever being notified. The model has no contractual relationship with the AI company. The release form they signed doesn’t name the AI company. But the chain of sub-licensing rights, combined with the perpetual usage grant, creates a clean legal pathway from shoot day to synthetic generation.
What Rights Models Actually Retain
In most cases, very few. When a model signs a standard release granting “irrevocable” rights, they surrender their ability to revoke consent for future uses of their image. The “royalty-free” language eliminates any obligation for the client to pay the model when the image is reused, re-licensed, or — critically — used to train a generative system that produces new images derived from the model’s likeness. The “in perpetuity” clause means these rights persist even after the model’s career ends, after the brand changes creative direction, after the photographer dies, and after the original campaign is forgotten.
What most models don’t realize is that the release form often grants rights broader than what the model’s agency negotiated in the booking contract. A model may be booked for a one-time campaign with a usage window of six months, but the release form they sign on set may grant perpetual rights that extend far beyond the booking terms. Agencies frequently fail to reconcile the release language with the booking agreement, and models rarely have legal counsel present on set to review the release before signing. The result is a documented pattern: models are booked and paid for limited usage, but sign away perpetual rights on set that make the actual usage unlimited.
The right of publicity — the legal right to control the commercial use of one’s name and likeness — varies by jurisdiction. In California, Civil Code Section 3344 provides statutory protections against unauthorized commercial use of a person’s likeness. In New York, Civil Rights Law Sections 50 and 51 create similar protections. But these statutes were designed to address unauthorized use by parties who had no contractual relationship with the subject. When a model has signed a release form granting perpetual rights, the right of publicity is largely waived. The model’s legal recourse against AI-generated usage of their likeness depends on whether the release form’s language can be interpreted to cover synthetic media — and in most cases, it can.
The “Hereafter Devised” Problem
The phrase “or hereafter devised” appears in the vast majority of standard model release forms. It was included to future-proof contracts against new media technologies — cable television, the internet, social media platforms. In the 1990s, this language protected brands that wanted to move a print campaign onto a website without renegotiating usage. In 2024, the same language is being interpreted to cover AI-generated synthetic media, because AI is a “medium hereafter devised” at the time the contract was signed.
This interpretation hasn’t been extensively tested in court. But the contractual logic is clear: if a model grants perpetual rights to use their likeness in any medium “now known or hereafter devised,” and AI-generated imagery is a medium that was devised after the contract was signed, then the release covers AI usage. The model’s likeness can be used to train a generative model, and the output of that model — images that look like the model but were never actually photographed — may be covered by the same perpetual grant.
Some legal scholars argue that AI-generated synthetic media is fundamentally different from the uses contemplated by the original release, and that training an AI system on a model’s likeness constitutes a new use that was not within the parties’ intent. This argument hasn’t yet prevailed in any reported case involving a model release form. Until it does, the “hereafter devised” language remains the primary contractual mechanism by which models’ likenesses enter AI training pipelines without additional consent or compensation.
How Models Can Document and Track Image Usage
One of the most significant structural disadvantages models face in the AI era is the absence of any systematic tracking mechanism for how their images are used downstream. A model signs a release, leaves the set, and in most cases never sees the final images unless they appear in a public campaign. There is no industry-standard system for notifying models when their images are re-licensed, archived, or used in a new medium. This information vacuum makes it nearly impossible for a model to know whether their likeness has been used to train an AI system until synthetic images resembling them begin appearing in commercial contexts.
Building a personal documentation system is the first step toward reclaiming some control. Models should maintain a structured record of every shoot they work on, including the date, client, photographer, agency, specific release form language, usage terms negotiated in the booking contract, and any subsequent uses they become aware of. This is not unlike the structured production documentation that governs other creative industries — where standardized call sheets, script breakdowns, and revision-tracked documents create an auditable record of how a professional’s work is deployed across a project’s lifecycle. The principle is the same: you cannot protect rights you cannot document, and you cannot document what you do not track systematically.
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Contract Clauses Models Should Negotiate
If the standard release form is the problem, the solution must be contractual. Models and their agencies should negotiate specific language in every release form that addresses AI usage directly. The following clauses are not standard in current release forms, but they are increasingly necessary.
AI Training Prohibition: “No image, photograph, or likeness of the Model captured pursuant to this agreement may be used to train, calibrate, or provide data for any artificial intelligence, machine learning, or generative model system, whether now existing or hereafter developed, without the Model’s express written consent and additional compensation to be negotiated in good faith.”
Synthetic Media Restriction: “No AI-generated, synthetic, or digitally manipulated image derived from the Model’s likeness may be created, published, or distributed without the Model’s express written consent. This prohibition extends to any generative system that produces images substantially similar to the Model’s likeness, whether or not the Model’s original photograph is directly used in the generation process.”
Usage Reconciliation: “The rights granted in this release are limited to the usage terms specified in the booking agreement dated [date] between [agency] and [client]. Any use beyond the scope of the booking agreement, including but not limited to sub-licensing to third parties, archival reuse, or use in new media, shall require additional negotiation and compensation.”
Reversion of Rights: “All rights granted under this release shall revert to the Model upon the expiration of the usage term specified in the booking agreement. No perpetual or irrevocable rights are granted except as expressly stated in writing in a separate agreement signed by the Model.”
These clauses will meet resistance. Brands and production companies will argue that they limit flexibility and increase costs. They’re correct — they do. That is the point. The current system works because models sign releases without negotiation, and brands have no incentive to change language that gives them maximum rights at minimum cost. The only way the language changes is if models, agencies, and their legal representatives begin refusing to sign releases that don’t contain AI-specific protections.
The Agency’s Role — and Failure
Modeling agencies occupy a conflicted position in this ecosystem. As the model’s representative, the agency has a fiduciary obligation to protect the model’s interests, including their image rights. But agencies also benefit from the current system: broad release language makes models easier to book, because clients know they’re acquiring perpetual rights with minimal negotiation. Agencies that push back on release language risk losing bookings to agencies that don’t. This creates a race to the bottom in which no agency has an incentive to negotiate harder for AI protections than the next agency.
Several major agencies have begun including AI-specific language in their standard booking confirmations, but these provisions typically protect the agency’s interests — the right to represent the model’s digital likeness, for example — rather than the model’s. An agency that claims the right to license a model’s digital double isn’t protecting the model from AI exploitation; it is positioning itself to profit from it. Models should ask their agencies directly: what AI-specific language is included in our booking confirmations and release forms? Who owns the right to license my likeness for AI training? What happens to my images if the agency is acquired or goes bankrupt? If the agency cannot answer these questions in writing, the model has their answer.
What to Do If You Have Already Signed a Perpetual Release
Most working models have already signed multiple release forms containing perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free language. For these models, the question isn’t whether to negotiate future contracts differently, but whether anything can be done about past signings. The answer depends on the specific contract language, the jurisdiction, and the factual circumstances of the shoot.
Models who signed releases as minors may have grounds to disaffirm the contract under state law. In California, contracts signed by minors can be disaffirmed within a reasonable time after reaching the age of majority. In New York, model release forms signed by minors must be re-signed after the model turns 18 to remain valid. Models who signed releases under fraudulent pretenses — such as being told the release was limited to a specific campaign when the language granted perpetual rights — may have grounds to challenge the contract’s validity.
Models whose images have been used in ways that exceed the scope of the original booking agreement may have a breach of contract claim, even if the release language is broad. If the booking agreement specified a six-month usage window and the images appeared in a campaign two years later, the model may have a claim regardless of the release language — though this requires the booking agreement to be more specific than the release, which is not always the case.
The Industry Has No Incentive to Fix This Voluntarily
Every party with the power to reform release form language benefits from the status quo. Brands acquire perpetual image rights for a single day-rate payment — a fraction of what residuals or renewal fees would cost if usage were renegotiated each time a campaign extended or a new medium emerged. Production companies face no liability when images they control enter AI training pipelines, because the release form’s sub-licensing language insulates them from the downstream consequences. Stock agencies have entered into multimillion-dollar licensing deals with AI companies to supply training data; their revenue depends on the breadth of the releases they collect from talent. Even photographers benefit: broad releases protect them from usage disputes and make their archives more valuable to clients who want unrestricted assets.
Practical Steps Before Your Next Shoot
If you are walking onto a set in the current environment, you must assume that anything you sign will be interpreted as broadly as the language allows — and that “hereafter devised” will be stretched to cover technologies that did not exist when you signed. The minimum protective protocol is straightforward: request the release form at least 48 hours before the shoot, not on set under time pressure; compare the release’s usage grant against the booking confirmation your agency sent; flag any discrepancy in writing to your booker before you arrive; and carry printed copies of the AI-specific clauses above to hand to the production coordinator. If the production refuses to accept modified language, document that refusal in an email to your agency with the subject line “Release form negotiation — written record.” A model who worked a major cosmetics campaign in February 2024 followed exactly this protocol: her agency initially told her the standard release was “non-negotiable,” but when she forwarded the booking confirmation — which specified a 12-month digital usage window — alongside the release form’s perpetual grant, the agency was forced to request a conforming release from the client. The shoot proceeded on schedule. The model’s images now carry a usage expiration date. The synthetic training question remains unresolved in her contract, but she has a documented paper trail establishing that she raised the issue before the shoot, which strengthens her position if those images later surface in an AI dataset. The lesson is not that every negotiation will succeed — most won’t, not yet. The lesson is that a written record of your objection is itself a legal asset, and one that costs nothing to create.