What is a likeness licence?

By Tim Nagle·Published October 9, 2026

A likeness licence is permission for a company to use your face, and sometimes your voice, for a specific project, in specific places, for a set time. You keep ownership of your likeness. The company only gets the use you agreed to. This guide explains what a licence on HyperKnown covers, what you keep, what happens when it ends and who actually makes the content.

What does a licence usually cover?

• The project. Who the company is, what the product is and the creative idea behind the advert.
• The markets. The countries or regions where the work will run.
• The channels. Where it will appear, such as social media, websites, paid social ads, TV or digital billboards.
• The term. How long the company can use it. The company chooses a 1, 2 or 3 month term up front, in the brief.
• Face, voice or both. The brief says whether the company is asking for your face, your voice or both.

The brief also shows how the content will be made, including any AI technique, any editing or translation terms, any exclusivity and your exact fee. You see all of this before you decide.

Once you accept and sign, the brief becomes your project agreement. A final advert that follows the brief does not need a second approval from you. If the company wants to change the brief in a material way, it has to offer you the new version to accept or decline.

What don't I give away?

• Ownership. Your face, your voice and the materials you upload stay yours. A licence is permission to use them, not a transfer of ownership.
• Permission for other projects. A brief you accepted for one campaign does not cover another campaign. A public profile or an earlier approval is not approval for something new.
• Your everyday life. You can still do ordinary personal, editorial and live-performance work. While you are on HyperKnown, the agreement asks you not to grant a conflicting AI licence over the same materials somewhere else.

Be clear on one point: AI training. The licensing agreement lets HyperKnown build, train and keep an AI version of your likeness, called an AI Character, and use your materials to train and improve its own models and tools (clause 3.3). It also lets HyperKnown use your name and likeness to promote HyperKnown itself, without a separate fee (clause 3.1). What a company can do with your likeness is still limited to the project you approved, or to a licence programme you chose to opt in to. Read clause 3 before you sign.

What happens when the licence ends?

A licence covers the term in the brief and nothing beyond it. When the term is over, the company has no permission to keep using your likeness unless it asks for a renewal. A renewal comes to you as a new request, and you decide whether to accept it, just as you did the first time.

Leaving HyperKnown works differently. If you leave the roster or delete your account, licences you already signed keep their agreed terms until they end, and the fees for them are still paid to you. No new licences can start after you leave.

Who makes the content?

When you accept a brief, the company receives licensed assets, such as 4K headshots, along with the signed consent record and provenance records. Its team or agency then makes the advert within the scope you approved. There is no filming day for you and nothing to edit.

Your fee comes with the licence. You see your exact fee on each brief before you accept. Fees vary by brief, and bookings are not guaranteed. Your fee, paid in full. Our commission is paid by the company.

How do I check a licence before I sign?

1. Read who the company is and what the product is.
2. Check that the markets, channels and term are ones you are comfortable with.
3. Check the content against your own limits. HyperKnown checks every brief against the limits you record, but you know your boundaries best.
4. Look at your fee and when it becomes payable.
5. If anything is unclear, decline. Declining is never held against you.

For the safety side, read is it safe to license your face for AI. When you are ready, apply to the roster or see how it works on the For people page.