Per-project consent vs blanket buyouts: what creators should never sign

By HyperKnown Team·Published September 1, 2026

Every AI likeness deal rests on one of two consent models. Under per-project consent, you approve each specific use of your face before it happens. Under a blanket buyout, you sign once and lose the right to be asked again. The contract language deciding which model you are in is often a single clause, and people sign the wrong one every day for a few hundred dollars.

This piece defines both models, shows what the difference costs in practice, and lists the exact clauses that should make you close the document without signing.

What is per-project consent?

The model has three load-bearing parts. Consent is specific: you approve a described use, not a category of uses. Consent is fresh: yesterday's approval covers yesterday's project only. And consent is documented: each approval produces a record tying you, the brief, the terms, and the payment together. Remove any one of those and you are drifting toward the blanket model.

On HyperKnown, per-project consent is the only mode that exists. Brands cannot license a creator without a brief, and no brief proceeds without the creator's individual approval. The complete guide to AI likeness licensing covers where this sits in the wider market.

What is a blanket buyout?

Buyouts are how most synthetic-avatar libraries were built: a recording session, a flat fee, and a contract granting wide rights to reuse the resulting likeness model. The person gets paid once. The platform then licenses that avatar to customers indefinitely, and none of the later revenue or approval flows back. The deal is legal when properly disclosed. It is also, for the person signing, close to the worst available trade: permanent rights out, one payment in.

Why does the difference matter?

The row that hurts people most in practice is context control. Under a buyout, the first time you learn your face is fronting a dubious supplement ad or a political campaign may be when a friend sends you the screenshot. Reputation damage of that kind is hard to undo and harder to litigate when the contract technically permitted the use. Per-project consent closes the authorized path to that scenario: no approved brief, no licensed content with your face, and anything made outside that boundary is unauthorized use with a record to prove it.

Which contract clauses should stop you from signing?

Read for these five patterns. Any one of them converts a licensing deal into a buyout, whatever the marketing page says:

1. Perpetual or irrevocable grants. A license without an end date is a sale. Fair deals state a term and a renewal process.
2. All media, now known or later devised. This 1990s film-contract phrase now hands over uses nobody can foresee, including future AI systems. Scope should name the channels.
3. Sublicensing or transfer without your approval. If the buyer can pass your likeness rights to third parties, you no longer know who holds them. Approval rights over any transfer are the fix.
4. Training rights beyond your replica. Language letting the company use your data to train general models means your biometrics outlive the commercial deal. Training should be limited to producing your own licensed likeness.
5. Waiver of approval over context or edits. A clause saying the buyer need not submit uses for approval is the blanket model in plain words. That is the clause per-project consent replaces.

What should a fair likeness agreement include?

• A defined term for every license, with renewal as a new decision, not an automatic rollover.
• Named channels and territories for each project.
• A stated revenue split paid per license. On HyperKnown, creators receive 65% of every license fee.
• Your content restrictions recorded and enforced against incoming briefs before you ever see them.
• A consent record for each approved project: the brief, the terms, the approval, the payment.
• Deletion or deactivation of your likeness model when you leave, once existing licenses expire.

None of this is exotic. Union agreements reached the same conclusions: SAG-AFTRA's AI provisions require specific consent and separate compensation for each use of a performer's digital replica, which is per-project consent under another name. The standard exists. The only question is whether the contract in front of you follows it.