A growing number of ordinary people in China are selling AI content makers the right to use their appearance, Gulf News reports, drawing on listings reported by the South China Morning Post. Once a face has been captured, producers can generate new footage of that person as a digital actor in short dramas, adverts, games and other content, without the person coming back to a studio.
Advertised prices run from 50 yuan, about $7, up to 100,000 yuan, close to $15,000, depending on the person's looks, the intended use and the licence terms. The top figures are not typical: Rest of World found deals paying roughly $15 to $74 an episode. One 27-year-old bank worker named Huang reportedly licensed his image seven times in three days and made about 2,600 yuan.
The appeal is strongest in China's booming AI short-drama market, where a producer can buy permission once and then change a character's clothes, setting, movement and lines at will. Some platforms let people upload their own photos and offer their digital likeness to buyers, turning appearance rather than time into a kind of gig work. For producers it builds a growing library of real faces to turn into virtual performers.
The report flags the risks: a licensed face could turn up in scenes its owner never took part in, so the length of a deal, the content allowed and any right to sublicense matter a great deal. China has rules on deepfakes and synthetic media, but the market for likenesses is growing as AI video gets cheaper and more realistic.
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