There's a new, New York Law re AI "synthetic performers" in commercial ads, have you heard about it?

[LauraLee]

Their law says that AI models must have a “conspicuous” disclosure, or face stiff penalties, even if you’re outside of the USA.  Meaning, we must put something to say that this mockup AI person IS made up, over the image [not within] the details of the description or on tags.  See  Senate Bill S.8420-A.  It was signed by the governor, Kathy Hochul, on 12/11/25, to take effect 180 days out, to be on June 9th, 2026, whereby the penalties will begin.  

Also, another bill  Senate Bill S.8391,  the Post-Mortem protection, was also signed on 12/11/25, with no grace period. This law is about the non commercial use of a deceased individual’s name, voice, or likeness for 40 years after their death unless prior, explicit consent is obtained from their estate or heirs. 

*Note: The main reason I bring this up is that Zazzle is a worldwide site, and ads will be seen in New York, and if you don’t cover your AI Model mockups with a disclosure, you can be fined for not having that disclosure over your image.   

[KeeganCreations]

https://www.dglaw.com/ai-legal-updates-synthetic-performer-transparency-state-federal-conflict/ 

Here is an article about it. 

It looks like it is about AI simulated actors in “live” commercials and would not apply to the AI generated people we put in cover “photo” mockups. In any case, I am confident Zazzle’s lawyers will let Zazzle know if they need a policy change. Until then, I’ll not sweat it.

from the article:

"This law will not apply to media providers that carry advertising, nor will it affect the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shield online platforms from liability for content provided by their users. The requirements of this law are targeted squarely at advertisers and those involved in advertising creation.

Advertisers and agencies in violation of this law will face a civil penalty of $1,000 for a first violation, and $5,000 for subsequent violations."

[LauraLee]

While it does include actors in roles, i.e. videos, is also includes digital media too, i.e. product mockups, which are advertisements.  The intention is provide evidence that an image was created digitally, and not look like a famous person [because some do], and that famous person (who has probably multiple contracts) wants to sue you over usage rights.  These AI tools can and do copy images that are on the internet, but my understanding is they try to make differences.

However, my understanding from your linked article states that the US Federal government is trying to create an Executive Order that overwrites the New York law, to provide a more blanket ruling for every state on the subject.  Which makes perfect sense.  

I agree that Zazzle’s lawyers will let Zazzle know and then let us know; but I just thought it would be wise to cya if the time runs short to make all the changes to our products.  Seems like an awful lot of images to go through and work on.

[Connie]

I hate NY, but these stupid laws are unenforceable. specially the one about not using deceased people’s name for 40 years. People don’t have exclusive rights to their names, especially when they have common names. How many John Smith’s are in the world? After one dies, the rest can’t use their own names??? 

[Simply_Designed_Gift]

The 40-year thing isn’t about if you have a neighbor named John Smith and they pass away. It’s about celebrities, people like Ozzy Osborn, Hulk Hogan, Elvis, Betty White. People whose names, likeness and voice are essentially their brand. So, the NY mayor can’t open his state ran grocery stores and use Betty White’s face as a part of the logo (just as an example) unless it’s been 40+ years.

People don’t just have exclusive rights to their name, but when people are famous for this reason or that and their brand is their name and face, they do have rights. Like Gene Simmons from KISS, he sues the pants off everyone that tries to put out merch without his approval or giving him royalties. Kim Kardashian’s kid was playing Roblox and someone used Kim’s likeness for in the game, and she said, “come here and show mommy more about this game i’m going to send it to my legal team to take care of”. Granted neither of them are dead, but if you can preserve your name/image/voice in life, that should continue into your passing. The day after you die, your family shouldn’t have to deal with people that you never even met trying to make a quick buck.

[LauraLee]

The Fashion Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion_law has been around since the late 2000’s, so it’s been protecting the celebs’ and other famous names and likeness for more than two decades now. 

There was a video clip I watched the other day, where an older white celebrity talked about a black man having his exact same name. He bumps into this black man at an airport, who happened to have his same name.  They talked for awhile, and this guy mentioned he would call around getting “celebrity” treatment over the phone for dinner and other things, and people were often shocked and disappointed all the time when he arrived. :open_mouth:  This guy was confused and acted perplexed at their expression all the time, because he never knew why they did this.  The celebrity was Don Johnson, if you’re wondering. :wink:  

[Susang6]

I don’t think this applies to what we’re doing on Zazzle. Product listings aren’t considered “advertisements” under the law they’re just product pages, not paid ads or sponsored promotions. From what I’m reading, the disclosure requirement is aimed at actual advertising… things like Facebook ads, Pinterest ads, Google ads, boosted posts, commercial videos, that sort of thing.

And the other bill people keep mentioning is the post‑mortem protection one, which is about using a deceased person’s name or likeness. That doesn’t really connect to mockups or product previews either.  So as far as I can tell, this isn’t directed at Zazzle creators listings at all.

[Susang6]

A lifestyle or flat‑lay mockup without any promotional text isn’t considered an advertisement. It’s just a product depiction. Advertising only kicks in when there’s messaging like “buy now,” “shop here,” or anything meant to persuade.

[Simply_Designed_Gift]

If you happen to use AI in your design or mock-up and Zazzle then decides to use that in a paid promotion campaign, they would be in trouble. The consequences would never hit the lone artist, but Z would have to do thorough research before letting any marketing material hit the internet to make sure it doesn’t have AI in it.

Knowing that, it would be good to consider if its worth using AI in mockups at all. If you don’t want your things to perhaps be used in paid Z promotion potentially netting more sales then carry on. But if you don’t want to let that chance slip by it might be good to rethink things. Just from a business standpoint, Z is not going to want to HAVE to put an AI disclaimer on marketing material because even seeing AI on something is such a turn off for people (AI coca-cola ad in 2024) it would stop them from even going on the website at all.

Makes me wonder if when we upload designs if Zazzle keeps track of the C2PA like places like YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram & Facebook. 

@Scott  Is there any way you could do some digging on if Zazzle takes in C2PA metadata? If not already implemented in some way, it could be useful in the future.

[Susang6]

From what I’ve read about the law and how it’s written, it applies specifically to paid advertising  things like sponsored posts, boosted content, commercial videos, and other forms of paid distribution. A Zazzle product listing itself isn’t an advertisement under that definition. It’s an organic product page created by a seller, not a paid promotional asset, and the legal language is tied to paid dissemination rather than marketplace listings.

However, creator mockup images are in the google Shopping, and those are paid ads. I’ve personally seen my own product mockups appear in Google‑sponsored listings, so that part is true and it’s something creators should be aware of.

When a product is pushed into Google Marketplace, the main product image  including a creator’s mockup  becomes part of a sponsored placement. That alone shows that creator images can appear in paid advertising through automated product feeds.

Zazzle’s Terms of Service give the platform a broad license to use the images we upload, including mockups, for purposes related to operating and promoting the site. But even with that license, using a creator’s mockup in a paid advertisement is still a different category of use. Paid ads involve commercial distribution, brand messaging, legal liability, FTC advertising rules, and now AI‑disclosure laws. Because of that, Zazzle would still need to make sure they have the correct rights, that the image is legally safe, that it doesn’t trigger disclosure requirements, and that the creator has granted permission for that specific type of commercial use. This is why the distinction matters.

Zazzle’s own branded campaigns typically rely on their own renders and photography. The Google Shopping placements are automated product‑feed ads, not hand‑designed marketing materials, which is why creator images appear there. But that’s different from Zazzle manually selecting a creator’s mockup for a commercial ad campaign.

My original point remains the same: the law applies to paid advertisements, Zazzle listings themselves are not advertisements It was nice talking about this topic, but I need to get busy creating now. Have a good day.

[Simply_Designed_Gift]

Using the hashtag #Zazzlemade when posting your products on social media gives Zazzle the opportunity to use your post in promotional and advertising materials. They actively pick from people that use that hashtag for different sales, holiday deals & product launches. 

By posting on social media with #ZazzleMade, you grant Zazzle an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to: display and reproduce the post, edit or modify it, use it in promotional and advertising materials create derivative works based on the tagged content & authorize others to use it through sublicenses. If you don’t share your products/designs with that hashtag, Zazzle does not have these rights.

You bring up the T&C but leave out the parts that don’t support what you’re saying. I never mentioned .com product listings were advertisements. Any advertising Zazzle does, if you use #Zazzlemade that instantly grants them all kinds of permissions (listed above), they have marketing people for this that know the ins and outs like the back of their hands.

Yes, they need to check themselves for AI elements for Z’s sake. But imagine this AI tagging thing for ads falls through somehow. Then there is no AI disclosure, no need for Z to check for it when they pick from #Zazzlemade submissions completely freely as they have been. Most people don’t know much about the hashtag, especially with all the new folks joining, it’s not something Z puts right in your face.

But if it DOES go through, and you use #Zazzlemade, they are going to turn it down if there’s AI used in it. Because even adding a disclosure for transparency’s sake has negative overall effects and there’s a dime-a-dozen designers to pick from. All it takes is the “wrong person” with a big enough following to yell “Zazzle sells AI art y’all” and that will be the biggest public incident since the “blooming elegant” one. I know sales are slow for lots so my hope in even mentioning this is so folks can follow this and do some deep thinking. It’s not easy nor fun to pivot this way or that way in your store, but we must try to keep up with the times or we fall behind forever. Mockups can be an amazing way to show off your design in a different way from default Z offered ones. AI can also speed up workflow. I seriously have to question personally if/when this goes through if all of us that did AI mockups inadvertently shot ourselves in the foot.

[ColsCreations]

Finally got around to reading about this bill tonight. It is currently my belief that it does apply to us as Designers if we are using an AI-generated human (“Synthetic Performer”) in a mockup, whether it’s one we’re using on Zazzle itself or in a Pin or on social media or in an actual paid ad. 

The bill itself does not include a definition for “advertisement” which is quite odd since the whole thing revolves around SP’s in ads. Digging around, New York State doesn’t have any specific definition of what constitutes an ad, but NY courts have broadly interpreted it to include any commercial communication targeted to the public, including websites and social media posts, intended to drive the sale of consumer goods.  A bill introduced Dec 2025 and not yet passed - Senate Bill S8605, known as the "Fraudulent Social Media Advertising Prevention Act - does include a definition of what constitutes an advertisement:

“Advertisement” or “ad” means any paid message, sponsored content, promotional post, or commercial communication disseminated on a platform for the purpose of marketing, selling, promoting, or inducing the purchase or download of any product, service, application, or commercial opportunity.

There is nothing out there that states that to be considered an ad it has to be paid for. Rather, the general idea (and specific definition in this other bill) is that anything distributed to the public with the intent to induce purchase / drive a sale would most likely be considered an “ad” by NY.  And that would include our mockups even directly on Zazzle’s product pages. 
Zazzle themselves would be protected under Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act (CDA) from liability for user-uploaded “ads” (mockups)  that fail to disclose use of AI humans. However, Zazzle and other online platforms, being businesses, I’d expect they are going to want to extra-protect themselves so I will not be surprised if they add something about this to their User terms, that we need to disclose AI models used in on-site covers. 

I just checked, I have only 6 “covers” that include an AI generated human so shouldn’t be too hard to add a disclosure to them and re-upload if necessary. But I do feel like this is a situation where Zazzle really needs to chime in here with what their legal dept advises here, before the 9th.

* JUST MY OPINION. I am no legal expert. 

[Simply_Designed_Gift]

Thank you for also looking into this deeper and coming back with what you’ve found. I did @ scott the admin so he got a ping for this thread. We just have to let him get back to us when he’s gathered more info on his end I suppose. Would be nice to hear back before the weekend.

[Nelda_Hoxie]

I agree. I don’t use AI on my products, but I do on my Pinterest pins and some of my Zazzle mockups. I don’t see it as a big deal. I have started adding the disclaimer to all my AI mockups “Mockups AI Generated”. I don’t have a huge backlog of AI generated things to deal with. I will just sleep better. In my opinion it is up to the person creating the content to do this. We are adult business owners, not Zazzle’s children.  I think I will just delete my Zazzle AI mockups and go from there. it’s easier than rushing before the 9th. 

[Susan_Frazier]

Good info - thanks for putting this together @ColsCreations ! I have a combination of products, mockups, Pinterest Pins to address. Some of my photo template products use portraits of people that were AI Generated - everything from wedding photo template products to business cards, graduation products with a photo, to holiday cards with people, etc. I am interested in knowing where to include the AI generated disclosure for placeholder photos used in photo template products that are intended to be replaced by the customer using their own photo. 

[Nelda_Hoxie]

From what I have read the disclaimer has to be on the mockup itself. Where a person looking at the mockup can see it immediately. So I have been putting it in the lower right hand corner. It has to be large enough for them to read. It isn’t enough to put it in tags or a distant product description. So if I had used it in a Zazzle product that used AI. I would make a mockup and put it on that. 

Use AI altered images of models is a whole different matter. You may have to have permission from the model. I haven’t been doing that so I haven’t studied the matter closely. That seems more complicated.

[ColsCreations]

I’d forgotten about placeholder images for templates. I have two. 

Guess they need a disclosure that the baby is a synthetic performer 🤣

When I first saw “synthetic performer” … New York … I immediately thought , oh, OK, probably this isn’t to protect consumers, it’s to protect actors/models from losing gigs to AI. And yep, SAG-AFTRA and the JPC lobbied for this bill. They came to an agreement together but needed it to be a state law in order to cover those not bound by their private contractual agreement. The JPC frames it as being for consumer protection & trust, but for SAG - “Unregulated synthetic actors devalue real human expertise, de-skill the workforce, and systematically put New York artists out of work”.  Of course that’s the real reason. At this point in time though there are probably quite a few professions that have been effected by AI replacing the need to pay a human to do the thing, but this particular profession gets a law - that effects everyone whether in NY or not - just for themselves. That doesn’t really seem fair, but on the other hand, kudos to them I guess for having the organizational structures in place to be able to successfully lobby for themselves.

[SheaPrints]

Based on what I’ve gathered, it appears to be where a “synthetic performer” is wearing or holding a product, like wearing a t-shirt or holding a mug. I’m not sure if this applies to ID photos on products like business cards or lanyard badges, where customers expect to see placeholders. However, even these might require a visual overlay indicating “Place Image Here.”

If your template is set up forcing customers to replace an image, the design tool now grays out the area and displays a “change image” icon. There’s also a review stage alert preventing customers from finalizing without making the change. I wonder if that’s enough. We really need Zazzle to say what is needed here!

We can update our Zazzle product images if necessary, but our Pinterest images would need to be re-pinned, wouldn’t they? 🙁

[SheaPrints]

It just occured to me that if an ID placeholder photo is included, then disclosure labels will also have to appear on the Zazzle previews too!

[LauraLee]

I just wanted to say that it became simple to me, Zazzle already has a blanket coverage on them on everything we upload.  They’ll just take down any product for infringements, they just get notified and your product is gone. 

And in my pea brain, I’m thinking like this: EVERY product and collection in the entire Z MP has the possibility to be promoted and advertised.   It doesn’t have to be your or Zazzle’s ad, because there could be anyone promoting a product or collection for affiliated referrals.  Don’t forget that!  

So it’s back on us to keep up with this fast paced AI junk, especially if we dabbled with AI for mockups or templates.  Y’all got me on AI template images though… I was thinking those were replaceable, but now I can get an AI image of Mr. Gosling as a template image and throw an “AI generated image” over it. Haha! 🤣  I wouldn’t but that’s AI for ya!