There are more and more AI faces in micro-dramas, and whose face it is, who authorized it, and who owns it are becoming unavoidable headaches. On November 9, the Hongguo Short Drama Creator Center issued a new announcement, handing this difficult problem an "ID card"—starting immediately, the platform will provide virtual avatar creation/editing and rights confirmation capabilities, allowing creators to first submit prior evidence of real-person authorization, IP authorization, or original design for registration.
Three types of sources must all show ownership first
Behind an AI virtual avatar, ownership can be tangled: it may be based on a real person's likeness authorization, derived from an upstream IP, or purely original. The announcement makes clear that anyone holding a real-person/upstream authorization letter, or a copyright owner who has obtained a copyright registration certificate, can submit the corresponding avatar and materials to the platform to apply for rights confirmation. After the platform approves the application, it will generate a rights confirmation record for later reference when content is used and in risk-control handling. However, the platform also draws the boundary in advance: this "certificate" only serves as an auxiliary ownership record; it does not cover content or rights risks, and works still must comply with platform rules and laws and regulations when going online or being distributed.
A patch forced by the "face collision" chaos
Looking at the bigger picture, the rights confirmation feature looks more like a patch by Hongguo to address homogenization. In October this year, the platform had just announced that it would step up governance of low-quality and homogenized content, naming and criticizing three types of chaos, among which "homogenization of character materials" was especially glaring—mass application of the same face model and facial feature templates led to highly similar face shapes and makeup for different works and different characters, resulting in "multiple people with the same face" and "face collisions across dramas." When AI makes the cost of creating characters by face-swapping approach zero, giving virtual avatars a "household registration" not only helps creators prove their innocence but also makes it easier for the platform to quickly identify ownership disputes during distribution. This small rights confirmation record may well be a footnote to micro-dramas moving from wild growth toward standardization.
