Clearing and Contracting for Digital Replicas: A Practitioner's Guide to Consent, Scope, and Duration
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide takes a digital replica from the decision to use one through the consent, the contract, the production, and the enforcement that may follow. It starts with the four threshold questions — whose likeness, what will be created, what use, and which states — and works through the consent document element by element, because the gap between obtaining consent and drafting a valid one is where nearly all current exposure sits. It covers the source material and model retention terms nobody drafts, the duration caps that make perpetual grants unenforceable, separate compensation for creation and use, exclusions, credit, and revocation. Later stages cover minors, deceased individuals and the domicile analysis, union agreements, the archive problem, disclosure and labeling, and enforcement against unauthorized replicas. Each stage gives the deliverable and the failure mode.
IP and Technology > Right of Publicity | Guide | Published 14 January 2026 - Updated 27 May 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This guide takes a digital replica from the decision to use one through the consent, the contract, the production, and the enforcement that may follow. It starts with the four threshold questions — whose likeness, what will be created, what use, and which states — and works through the consent document element by element, because the gap between obtaining consent and drafting a valid one is where nearly all current exposure sits. It covers the source material and model retention terms nobody drafts, the duration caps that make perpetual grants unenforceable, separate compensation for creation and use, exclusions, credit, and revocation. Later stages cover minors, deceased individuals and the domicile analysis, union agreements, the archive problem, disclosure and labeling, and enforcement against unauthorized replicas. Each stage gives the deliverable and the failure mode.
Keywords: replica clearance, use description, source material, model retention, informed consent, representation requirement, minor consent, duration cap, separate compensation, exclusions, credit and attribution, revocation, post-mortem consent, estate authority, domicile analysis, union agreements, archive licensing, disclosure and labeling, platform takedown, enforcement
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