The market for deepfake detection was reported at $3.86 billion in 2022 and continues to expand. Deepfakes are a menace to society, they use AI to forge incredibly realistic videos and impersonate celebrities, political entities and athletes. They can replace the person in an original video with a digital footprint version of that same person in order to get them to say whatever they like. In spite of its impact on a wider societal scale, the technology can also harness the possibility to revolutionise the way that sports content is consumed.
I briefly explore the ways in which this can be marketed and the potential dangers associated with deepfake technology.
In what ways can deepfakes make its way into football and the wider sports industry?
Now, this can present quite a few legal questions that would need to be explored further, as IP law would need to evolve in order to adapt to the advanced nature of deepfakes:
These questions persist because existing laws don’t have sufficient parameters to deal with these questions. We have seen the likes of David Beckham and now Lionel Messi providing deepfake versions of themselves, but they clearly have not signed away their full image rights. But what were to happen if they did??
Deepfakes can be used to maliciously harm athletes’ reputations and spread disinformation and can be incredibly difficult to distinguish between what is real or fake. It could potentially create a fake sports event or even manipulate the outcome of real events. Yes, whilst there are positives in that they can generate several revenue streams for both the developers of the technology and the athletes, the harms continue to be terrifying. Legal advisers may point to the opportunities: you could create virtual meet and greets with the deepfake athlete, historic football games could be recreated but with modern athletes (imagine how many would pay to watch this), and past events could be brought to life. There is much money to be made through deepfake technology, however the potential for disinformation should render these opportunities redundant and insufficient. The dangers are palpable and must be cautioned against.