Hank's IP Brew — Issue #22

Howdy, y'all.

This week: Meta launched an AI tool that let anyone generate photos of you using your public Instagram handle — without asking — and got slapped back hard enough to pull it within days. And Louisiana became the first state to require NIL agents to register, pass a background check, and complete a training program before they can represent student-athletes. One story is about a platform that assumed it had permission it never got. The other is about a state deciding that the people sitting across the table from young athletes need to be held accountable.

Let's get into it.

On Tuesday, July 8, Meta announced Muse Image — a new AI model available across the Meta AI app, Instagram Stories, and WhatsApp. The pitch was social creativity: "AI in service of the social experiences billions of people already love." One of its headline features let any user generate an AI-created photo of someone by simply typing their public Instagram handle into the prompt.

No permission required. No notification to the account holder. If you had a public Instagram account and were over 18, you were in — unless you actively went and opted yourself out.

By Friday, the feature was gone.

What happened

The backlash was immediate and came from the top of the industry. CAA — which represents Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Zendaya, Meryl Streep, and thousands of other talent — released a statement within 24 hours calling out Meta directly. "No one's name, image, likeness, voice or creative work should be used by any third party, including AI models, without clear, documented consent," CAA said. They raised their concerns with Meta on behalf of clients and demanded the platform flip to opt-in as the default.

SAG-AFTRA followed the next day, urging all members — and all Instagram users — to opt out immediately. "Take action to protect your likeness," they wrote.

By Friday, Meta issued a statement: "We've heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it's no longer available." CAA responded with a commendation of the "swift decision."

Four days from launch to retraction.

Why opt-out vs. opt-in matters so much

This isn't a technical distinction. It's the entire ballgame.

Opt-out means your default state is: anyone can use your image to generate AI content. You have to take affirmative steps to stop it, and you have to know the feature exists in the first place to do anything about it. Most people won't. Most people never read platform announcements. Most people find out about features like this from news coverage — or from seeing AI-generated photos of themselves circulating online.

Opt-in means no one can use your image until you explicitly say yes. That's consent. That's how it should work.

Meta's framing was that opt-out gives users "control." It doesn't. It gives users the ability to undo something that already happened to them. That's not control — it's cleanup.

This is worth understanding as a pattern, not just a single incident. This was at least the second time in recent memory that a major AI platform launched a creator likeness feature with opt-out defaults and had to reverse course after industry pushback. OpenAI did the same thing with its Sora 2 video model, which let users generate videos featuring celebrities and popular characters without consent, drew identical objections from CAA and the Motion Picture Association, and eventually shut down entirely — OpenAI terminated a $1 billion deal with Disney in the process.

The lesson isn't that these companies don't know opt-in is the right answer. They know. The lesson is that they'll keep trying opt-out until the cost of reversal exceeds the benefit of the initial data grab. When that calculation changes — through legislation, through litigation, through large enough institutional pushback — the defaults will change permanently. Until then, the playbook is: launch aggressively, retreat when the noise gets loud enough, regroup.

What to do right now

Even though Meta pulled this specific feature, Muse Image still exists and new features will follow. Here's what to check:

Go to your Instagram settings → Account Privacy → and look for any AI-related data or content settings. Meta's broader AI training opt-out (available since 2024 for EU users and extended to others) is separate from Muse Image and may still be active. Opt out of everything you can find.

If you have a public Instagram account — whether you're a creator, a business owner, an athlete, or anyone who posts regularly — this week is a good reminder to audit what your profile is visible to. You cannot opt out of features you don't know about. The best protection is understanding exactly how much of your content is public, and whether that's still the right choice for you.

The NO FAKES Act, which we covered in Issue 20 and which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously in June, would create a federal right to control your AI likeness and a notice-and-takedown mechanism to enforce it. That bill hasn't passed yet. Until it does, your main tools are platform settings, state right-of-publicity laws (which vary enormously), and institutional noise — which, as this week showed, can actually work.

On July 1, Louisiana Act 895 took effect — making Louisiana the first state in the country to require anyone who represents student-athletes in NIL deals to register with the state, pass a background check, and complete a training program before they can work.

The law was authored by Sen. Patrick Connick and signed by Gov. Jeff Landry. It expands Louisiana's existing sports agent registry — which previously covered agents negotiating professional contracts — to cover anyone facilitating NIL sponsorship deals for college athletes. The state attorney general's office now has the power to pursue civil penalties against agents who harm student-athletes, and unregistered agents face criminal consequences including fines up to $10,000 and up to five years in prison.

A companion bill, Act 810, takes effect August 1 and extends protections to high school athletes: parents must consent to NIL deals for minors, certain industries (adult entertainment, gambling, alcohol) are off-limits, and schools can restrict NIL activity during school hours and school events.

Why this matters

NIL turned five years old on July 1, 2026. In those five years, a $2.5 billion market emerged from essentially nothing — and with it, an ecosystem of agents, collectives, advisors, and deal-makers operating with almost no oversight. The athletes at the center of that market are often teenagers and young adults, frequently first-generation earners, with limited experience evaluating contracts and limited ability to identify who is actually qualified to advise them.

The traditional sports agent industry has been regulated at the state level for decades under the Uniform Athlete Agents Act — the framework that requires agents negotiating professional contracts to register, maintain bonds, and follow disclosure rules. NIL created a gap: the same kind of intermediary work, the same power imbalance, the same risk of exploitation — but none of the same rules applied because technically no "agent" was involved in a professional contract.

Louisiana closed that gap. The law doesn't prevent anyone from representing athletes — it requires that people who do so meet minimum standards of accountability. Background check, training program, registration with the attorney general. That's a low bar, but it's a bar.

The creator parallel

The dynamics Louisiana identified for athletes exist throughout the creator economy. Talent managers, brand deal brokers, licensing agents, and "creator advisors" of every description operate in a space with minimal formal regulation. The same information asymmetries are present: one side of the table has done hundreds of these deals, the other side is doing their first.

This doesn't mean every creator needs a licensed agent. It does mean that when you're choosing someone to help you negotiate brand deals, licensing agreements, or sponsorships, you should ask the same questions a smart athlete should ask: What's your background? What deals have you done? Are you registered anywhere? What happens if this goes wrong?

Louisiana's law won't directly affect creators outside the state or outside college and high school sports. But the model it establishes — accountability requirements for intermediaries in the NIL economy — is one other states are watching. The study committee that recommended Act 895 was specifically convened to address the new college sports landscape. As the creator economy matures, similar questions will come for creator-side representation.

For now: if you're an athlete, coach, or parent in Louisiana, check whether your agent or NIL advisor is registered at the state attorney general's office before signing anything. The registration portal launched alongside the law. If they're not registered, they're not legal.

See you next time,

Hank

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About Hank's IP Brew

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