One of the most talked about stories this past week was that actor Bruce Willis had sold the rights to his digital likeness to a deepfake company called Deepcake.
The deal, first reported in UK paper The Telegraph, would allow the use of a ‘digital twin’ of Willis to be used in future screen projects. The news came six months after Willis’ retirement from acting following his diagnosis of aphasia.
This weekend though, The BBC reports that a spokesperson for Willis has denied that he has any kind of partnership or agreement with the company.
Deepcake subsequently also confirmed the story a few days ago was inaccurate, saying: “The wording about rights is wrong… Bruce couldn’t sell anyone any rights, they are his by default.”
Deepcake uses artificial intelligence to create realistic simulations of famous figures and claims they worked with the actor for what was an advert for a Russian telecom company last year – that advert is available online.
The original story came out a few days after “Star Wars” veteran James Earl Jones reportedly retired from the role of voicing Darth Vader, with rights granted to another AI company (Respeecher) to recreate his Vader voice digitally for future “Star Wars” projects.
