The clause everyone skipped
New York's synthetic performer law puts the liability on you, not the creator who made the asset, and more!
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⚖️ The clause missing from every creator contract you signed
New York General Business Law 396-b took effect on June 9, requiring advertisers to disclose when an advertisement uses a synthetic performer. Amazon told sellers on July 22 to embed a specific metadata keyword in listing images containing photorealistic AI-generated people. Penalties run to $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for each one after.
Read the enforcement language carefully, because this is where affiliate programs get caught. The obligation sits with the advertiser, not the platform distributing the ad. When you whitelist a creator's video and run it as paid media, you are the advertiser. The creator made the asset. You carry the liability.
The statute defines a synthetic performer as a digital asset created or modified by generative AI to give the impression of a human performance by someone not recognizable as an identifiable real person.
That last clause does enormous work. A real creator whose footage was AI-enhanced is a different case from a fabricated person, and almost nobody's contract records which one they received.
Audit what you already have running
Start with assets, not agreements. Pull every creator asset currently live in paid placements and sort into three buckets: filmed with a real person and unmodified, filmed with a real person and AI-enhanced, and containing any fully generated human including background figures.
The third bucket is your exposure. The second is your ambiguity, and it is usually the largest, because background cleanup and upscaling tools are now default features inside editing apps creators use without thinking about it.
Add a production disclosure to your creator terms
Two clauses, neither controversial, both absent from standard templates:
- A representation stating whether generative tools were used to create or modify any human figure in the deliverable, background figures included
- A requirement to preserve and supply source files on request, so provenance can be established after the fact
Creators sign these readily. The friction is entirely on your side, in remembering to ask before the asset ships rather than after a complaint lands.
Recruit early enough to negotiate terms at all
New terms are a conversation you can only have when a creator has room to have it. In November, when calendars are full and every brand is bidding for the same slots, "sign this amended agreement" is a reason to work with someone else.
That timing problem is the argument for building the roster across the ninety days before peak, which is the structure Levanta's 90-Day Holiday Sprint lays out. You can download the free playbook here.
Disclosure requirements are expanding across states and platforms. The contract you fix now covers the rule you have not read yet.
Partnership with Tatari
The brands winning BFCM start optimizing early.
Tatari surveyed TV advertisers about their 2026 holiday plans, and brands are moving early.
Nearly 6 in 10 are increasing their BFCM TV budgets, and 54% plan to launch holiday messaging before mid-November
Launching earlier gives brands time to find what converts before TV inventory gets more competitive and expensive.
That’s how Knix approached TV. After testing ahead of peak season, one spot drove 9,000 site visits within five minutes at a 70% lower CPA. Creative testing also doubled response rates and cut CPV by 45%.
The extra runway helped Knix identify what deserved more budget before purchase intent peaked.
By Black Friday, you don’t want to still be testing. You want to be scaling.
See how Tatari can help you scale TV for BFCM.
P.S. In NYC Oct. 29? Join Tatari at Forward for an afternoon on what’s next in advertising with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and marketers from Liquid IV, MANSCAPED, and more.
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