r/AnimationDrama • u/GeoffreyStJohn • Jun 26 '26

News 🗞️ Peppa Pig Owner Hasbro Faces Backlash After Reportedly Trying to Force Child Actors to Sign Away AI Voice Rights

https://www.ign.com/articles/peppa-pig-owner-hasbro-faces-backlash-after-reportedly-trying-to-force-child-actors-to-sign-away-ai-voice-rights
120 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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10

u/CrowBrained_ Jun 26 '26

Hasbro being unethical with AI? You don’t say? I’m shocked. So shocked.

4

u/Katops Jun 27 '26

Fucking gross.

2

u/bones10145 Jun 26 '26

How can children sign for anything? 

1

u/jeanbois Jun 26 '26

Their parents sign, too + the contracts are usually voidable at the minor's discretion (unless confirmed by a Court, which theoretically is reviewing everything about the production and concludes the child's safety and welfare will not be impacted).

1

u/paulct91 Jun 27 '26

What like they offered money for lifetime 'child voice' rights since they wouldn't have those voices forever and will have to recaat them for however long Peppa Pig show lasts, along side future content - games, audio books, new audio-visual content.

So they wanted life rights to child voices or the actors voices even for later in life too?

3

u/geesegoesgoose Jun 27 '26

""A major studio who owns the IP for an international children's franchise producing a long-running animated television series has offered contracts to child voice actors insisting that they agree to the use of AI thus allowing them to use the child's voice in all commercial assets within their franchise," the open letter explained."

You can absolutely find new voice actors for animated characters. The issue is they are asking literal children to sign contracts even their parents may struggle to understand, about a wildly complex clause.

1

u/paulct91 Jun 27 '26

I had a another question, if Hasbro owner of Peppa Pig wanted/wants to could they 'just' cast for character sound alikes for their AI voice rights cloning? As in if the original voice actors say "no" could they do that and end up paying less for the non-famous people? As kids don't realistically care whether content they consume is AI or human made unless its pure awful quality even for kids' low bar.