Likeness is the product; do not generate other people
Your stills, your consent, I2V. Private persons are not a style.
Your stills, your consent, I2V. Private persons are not a style. If the face is the product — a creator account, a subscription feed, a personal brand — the only honest identity in the clip is a still you own of a person who granted the use. Inventing a co-star, a "fan," or a lookalike from a photo you did not take is someone else's likeness, not art direction.
A deepfake of a private person is not a style is the rights post: TikTok's private-figure line, labelling is not permission, a standard model release does not cover generation. This page is the production rule when your face is the SKU. Animate yourself. Do not generate other people.
The face in the still has to be yours
Image-to-video starts from a frame you already approved. Frame one is the file. Composition and identity are locked; the model adds camera and physics. Text-to-video decides the face and the motion together. That is how you get a cousin of you, or a stranger.
Lock stills you would actually post. Same lighting family, same wardrobe, same crop. Iterate the stills. Then animate. Re-describing your face in the motion prompt is how the model treats the face as optional.
Your own face or voice, with your own consent, is the ordinary clone case. Write it down if a company or collaborator will keep the model after you leave. Posted selfies are a feed, not a replica grant.
A private person is not a look
Private means not a public figure. A subscriber. A co-creator. A staffer. A face from a collab story. If a reasonable person who knows them would say "that is them," you have a likeness problem, not a styling problem. "UGC lighting" and "aesthetic" do not create a grant. Style reference of a private person's headshot is how you get their head.
Allowed, tightly: a person who does not exist and is not a lookalike; a person who signed a replica grant that names face, voice, duration, territory, and take-down; illustration that is not photorealistic of a real private person. Not allowed: "we changed 15% of the face." Minors are a hard stop.
The release that covers generation is the clause list when you do have talent. A shoot release authorises footage you shot. It does not authorise making new footage of someone.
Animate the grant, do not invent a cast
- No real-person references unless the grant is in the folder. Your stills. Cleared talent. Invented sheets with no living referent. Not someone else's grid "who looks on-brand."
- I2V from the approved still, not T2V from a type. Identity is the spec. Motion only in the prompt.
- Do not generate customers or fans. A synthetic testimonial is a fabricated review on top of a likeness problem. Film someone who agreed, or hire an actor and say so.
- Split the file if a second body is in the shot. Comp a cleared extra. One generate should not be your likeness and a stranger.
This is general information, not legal advice. Platforms have impersonation and non-consensual synthetic-media rules of their own. TikTok is the one that says "private figure" in plain language.
Production rules that keep the product yours
Pause the clip on the face. Is it the still you would post as you? Yes → ship the motion. No → you prompted a scene, used text-to-video, or seeded a private person. Fix a wrong still before you buy motion.
Likeness is the product. Other people are not inventory. Your stills, your consent, then image-to-video.
FAQ
If I label the video AI-generated, can I use someone else's face?
Not as a general rule, and not on TikTok's private-figure line. A label tells viewers the media is synthetic. It does not create a grant from the person depicted. The deepfake post is the longer answer.
Can I use a subscriber's selfie as a "style reference"?
No. Style reference of a private person's headshot is how you get their head. If you need a second body, hire and clear them, or invent a face with no living referent.
Is I2V of my own still a deepfake of me?
It is a generate of a likeness you control, if you are the person in the still and you consent. Treat company use as a written grant anyway. It is not a licence to seed other people into the same pipeline.
Can I generate extras in the background of a talking clip?
If that extra is a real private person you referenced, no. If they are an invented face with no living referent, you still have product-claim and disclosure rules. Background is not a likeness carve-out for a recognisable person.