In recent years, the rise of AI short films has led to the emergence of a face trading and face theft industry in mainland China. It has become a lucrative business for some, with reports of individuals earning nearly 2500 yuan in just three days by participating in such activities. However, the issue of face theft has already spiraled out of control in the industry. Despite being a surveillance state, China is witnessing a rapid expansion of facial recognition technology, with the Communist Party itself being considered a major violator of individual privacy.
According to a report by the Chinese media outlet “Daily Economic News,” a face authorization platform in Chengdu was exposed for facilitating nearly 70 transactions within two months, where ordinary people’s portraits were priced and traded for use in AI short films. The platform charged no less than 500 yuan for authorizing a single face for an AI short film, with one bank employee making nearly 2500 yuan by “selling” their face seven times in three days.
The platform staff revealed that the film industry has stringent requirements for face materials, necessitating high-precision photographs taken at offline collection points with strict angle specifications. Currently, collection points are established in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing.
It has been reported that all portraits uploaded to the platform are watermarked for tracking and rights protection purposes. However, when asked about the data storage location, the staff mentioned that the data is not stored on the company’s hard drives but rather on cloud servers, with encryption measures in place. Contracts are executed through electronic agreements.
In a report by the “Beijing News,” the phenomenon of AI short films featuring look-alikes is causing audiences to collectively struggle with facial recognition. This trend is driven by the industry’s pursuit of stable character images, leading to the direct acquisition of multiple high-resolution frontal face photos of real individuals to serve as “visual anchors” for the production of AI short films.
Social media platforms and WeChat groups in mainland China are witnessing a covert rise in AI face trading businesses for short film production. These recruitment efforts are often disguised under banners such as “AI digital artist signing” and “recruitment of AI real-person short film actors.”
The head of the “Just Right Entertainment” talent agency described the signing process, which involves providing clear, high-resolution, unobscured portrait photos to secure full image rights and signing formal authorization contracts. Individuals aged 15 to 55 with suitable appearances are invited to participate, and minors require guardian consent for signing, with revenue sharing from signing bonuses and premium series.
Individuals involved in AI face trading recruitment noted that authorizations are granted based on short film units or monthly/yearly terms, with pricing determined by facial features. Professional actors or models can charge between 800 to 1000 yuan for authorizing their faces for a single short film, while amateurs typically charge around 200 yuan for yearly use.
In a report by the “Beijing Evening News,” recruitments often require individuals expressing signing intentions as amateurs to first submit makeup-free photos, labeled with “image authorization,” before proceeding to the next steps. This practice means that users are already sharing their personal images without any contract agreements in place, raising concerns about possible misuse and lack of protection of these photos in the future.
In recent years, the rapid advancements in deep learning and generative AI technologies have fueled a gray industry chain involving the manipulation of scripts, faces, and original voices in short videos, micro-dramas, and adult content. This has led to cases of unauthorized use of celebrities’ faces and voices, creating chaos within the industry.
Chinese actor Yee Yung Chi-hsi was recently targeted by multiple AI short films that stole his face and used synthesized voices for show creation and commercial purposes without his consent. Yee Yung Chi-hsi’s studio promptly issued a statement clarifying that the actor was not involved in any such works nor authorized any third-party AI synthesis, urging platforms to take down and remove all infringing content.
A Chinese hanfu blogger, known as “Cabbage Hanfu Makeup,” publicly accused the Red Fruit micro-drama platform for using AI technology to replicate her personal photos, makeup, and accessories in the production of the series “Peach Blossom Hairpin” without her permission, distorting her character to portray a negative stereotype. The blogger has formally lodged a complaint against the platform for these actions.
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