Protecting Yourself from AI Misuse as a Freelance Creative

As AI continues to reshape the creative industry, it’s more important than ever for freelance artists to take proactive steps to protect both their work and their rights. Implementing AI restriction in your estimates and contracts today helps establish clear boundaries around how your work can, and cannot, be used in the future.

At Bureau of Artist Management (BAM), we've been including AI protection language in our estimates and agreements with an 80% ****success ****rate across commercial advertising projects.

Our recommendation is to bring up AI protections early in the negotiation process alongside your day rate and usage/licensing fees. Once agreed upon, include the language in the estimate you send for signature and in any Client Services Agreement or production contract. Introducing these terms upfront makes them a natural part of the negotiation and increases the likelihood they'll be accepted.

Suggested AI & Machine Learning Restriction:
Client shall not use, authorize, or permit the use of the work or any derivative assets for artificial intelligence training, machine learning, dataset creation, biometric analysis, facial recognition technologies, generative systems, style replication, or similar automated learning technologies without prior written consent.

Protecting artists and their creative work is a priority at BAM, and we encourage all freelancers to make AI protection language a standard part of their negotiation process.