麻豆传媒

Entertainment

    • Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns

    SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher poses for a portrait, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, at the SAG-AFTRA offices in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello/AP Photo) SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher poses for a portrait, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, at the SAG-AFTRA offices in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello/AP Photo)
    Share
    LOS ANGELES -

    Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

    The strike 鈥 the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists 鈥 will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

    SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA鈥檚 negotiating committee said that the studios鈥 definition of who constitutes a 鈥減erformer鈥 is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

    鈥淭he industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement,鈥 SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as 鈥渄ata.鈥

    Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor鈥檚 voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

    鈥淲e strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can,鈥 Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we鈥檙e doing it now."

    Cooling said the companies' offer 鈥渆xtends meaningful AI protections.鈥

    鈥淲e are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

    Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

    鈥淭he performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn鈥檛 look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier,鈥 Norris said. 鈥淲e cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn鈥檛 a performer.鈥

    The global video game industry generates well over US$100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

    Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year鈥檚 film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

    The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood鈥檚 two largest actors unions in 2012.

    The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 鈥渙ff-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers,鈥 according to the union.

    Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.

    CTVNews.ca Top Stories

    Secret tomb found under 'Indiana Jones' filming location in Petra

    At the heart of the ancient city of Petra, Jordan, carved into pink sandstone cliffs, lies an elaborate monument known as the Khaznah, or the Treasury. And buried beneath that edifice, archeologists recently discovered, is a tomb with at least 12 human skeletons and artifacts that are estimated to be at least 2,000 years old.

    Check your pockets: the winning ticket for Tuesday night鈥檚 $65-million Lotto Max jackpot was sold in Toronto.

    Canada

    • Check your pockets: the winning ticket for Tuesday night鈥檚 $65-million Lotto Max jackpot was sold in Toronto.

    • Toronto city staff opted not to install GPS devices on untracked parks maintenance vehicles even though they only cost $200 apiece, the audit committee heard Tuesday, in the fallout of a damning investigation that revealed field crews systemically parked at plazas and restaurants while logging on their timesheets that they were on the job.

    • A La Ronge-area man faces impaired driving charges after a highway rollover that left a teenage boy dead on Saturday.

    World

    Politics

    Health

    Sci-Tech

    Entertainment

    Business

    Lifestyle

    Sports

    Autos

    • Elon Musk unveils his 'Cybercab' robotaxi

      Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled on Thursday his vision of a 'a fun, exciting future,' an 'age of abundance' full of his company鈥檚 self-driving cars without steering wheels, parking lots turned into parks and robots that will walk among the population 鈥 that he once again promised would be available within a few years.

    • video

      video

      Dozens of cars were pulled out of the Detroit River in west Windsor on Tuesday, causing many questions for Windsorites.

    Local Spotlight

    With the cost of inflation and shrinkflation, Maritimers are paying more for Halloween candy this year.

    S岣祑x瘫w煤7mesh 脷xwumixw (Squamish Nation) Chef Paul Natrall, the man behind Indigenous food truck Mr. Bannock, is bringing cooking classes on First Nations fare to schools and offices throughout Metro Vancouver.

    The Celtic Colours Festival is taking place at venues around Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia from Oct. 11 to 19.

    Sometimes love is written in the stars, but for one couple, it鈥檚 written in the aurora borealis.

    Canadian hip hop artist Dillan King says running 100 marathons in 100 days was not only the hardest thing he has ever done, but the 'proudest accomplishment' of his entire life.

    James Taylor never expected to be walking home with a bag full of groceries he didn't buy.

    This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of a large blizzard that paralyzed Manitoba.

    There was an eye-catching mix of rainbows and lightning over Vancouver following a brief downpour this week.

    Jeff Warner from Aidie Creek Gardens in the northern Ontario community of Englehart has a passion for growing big pumpkins and his effort is paying off in more ways than one.

    • Featuring multiple subway lines and rapid bus routes, Vancouver-Little Mountain, a new riding for B.C.'s 2024 provincial election, is rapidly densifying.

    • Representatives of a British Columbia Sikh temple whose president was shot dead last year, as well as the Sikh independence group he was involved in, say their communities won't feel safe until India's consulates in Vancouver and Toronto are shut down.

    • Toronto will get a new area code next year, the CRTC is reminding residents.

    • A Toronto police officer has been taken to hospital with minor injuries following a collision involving a police cruiser.

    • Check your pockets: the winning ticket for Tuesday night鈥檚 $65-million Lotto Max jackpot was sold in Toronto.

    • A Calgary conference is set to look at how Canada has fallen behind in terms of productivity and how the situation can be turned around.

    • Infrastructure teams with the City of Calgary will be meeting Wednesday to discuss if more money should be committed toward improving the quality of roads.

    • As officials with the Calgary Public Library prepare to reopen locations on Wednesday, many questions about the cybersecurity breach that closed them remain unanswered.

    • Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe will table a bylaw that aims to restrict demonstrations near certain community spaces, including schools and hospitals amid an increase of hate crimes.

    • St. Michael Catholic High School in Kemptville, Ont. will be closed for a sixth time in two weeks on Wednesday, as police investigate a threat of violence towards the secondary school.

    • More than 40 employees at Best Theratronics Ltd. in Kanata went on strike five and a half months ago - a situation that Canada's largest private sector union says is highly unusual.

    • Bilingual Quebec municipalities have lost their bid to have several parts of the government's French-language reform suspended while their case makes its way through the courts.

    • In an effort to make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists, the City of Montreal is planning to make long-awaited changes to the St-Pierre interchange in LaSalle.

    • Hundreds of would-be voters waited outside the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) offices on Tuesday, the last night to register for the upcoming school board election on Nov. 3.

    • Educational support staff at Edmonton Public Schools will hold strike votes over the coming days.

    • WEATHER

      WEATHER

      It doesn't look like it'll rain non-stop all day today. But, we have a few scattered showers in the area this morning and there's a very good chance of some showers this evening.

    • The big guns finally came through to blast the Edmonton Oilers out of their season-starting slump.

    • WATCH LIVE

      WATCH LIVE

      Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has announced a new retirement benefit for doctors based on their years of service in the province.

    • Three of New Brunswick鈥檚 provincial party leaders will take part in a roundtable discussion hosted by CTV Atlantic tonight.

    • A recent wastewater study shows Halifax has the highest THC levels per capita in Canada, with 748 mg per day per 1,000 people.

    • A 28-year-old Winnipegger is facing charges after an altercation unfolded between a store employee and a man who allegedly tried to steal merchandise from a West Alexander area store.

    • Winnipeg's mayor is asking for patience from motorists during anticipated traffic delays at Portage and Main, as work begins to reopen the famed intersection.

    • Manitobans are seeing a major increase in the amount of money they lose to fraud.

    • The stage is set at Saskatchewan's Legislative Building for the 2024 Leaders Debate. The event follows a tradition of broadcast events that began all the way back in 1957.

    • The early fall season has been an entertaining time for northern lights viewing. Aurora Borealis, as it is also known, is a night sky phenomenon which can happen throughout the year.

    • The Regina Humane Society (RHS) is the temporary home to many cats and kittens, who now get to enjoy some storytelling thanks to the RHS's Kitty Readers program.

    • Erick Buhr, the man accused of killing his grandmother in 2022, has pled not guilty to second-degree murder.

    • People living in the Ontario and King Street area of Stratford may notice a heavy police presence.

    • More than a dozen Chihuahuas were found abandoned in crates at the side of a rural road last month.

    • A La Ronge-area man faces impaired driving charges after a highway rollover that left a teenage boy dead on Saturday.

    • Saskatoon police arrested five people and seized kilos of cocaine and methamphetamine in a targeted bust this month.

    • A motel in North Battleford went up in flames on Monday night.

    • Impaired driving charges against a Brampton, Ont., man have been dismissed after his lawyer successfully argued that his Charter rights were breached during his Sudbury-area arrest.

    • A Greater Sudbury woman is upset about the charges laid against the man accused of attacking her son and a group of his colleagues downtown on Saturday.

    • London City Council has approved what is believed to be one of the largest residential development project proposals in the province.

    • Residents are rallying for change in Lambton County following a fatal crash.

    • After consultation with the Rahman family, it was agreed that the tree would be planted at the Julie McArthur Regional Recreation Centre property.

    • Police are investigating a drive-by shooting in Springwater Township that they say happened over the Thanksgiving Day long weekend.

    • After consultation with the Rahman family, it was agreed that the tree would be planted at the Julie McArthur Regional Recreation Centre property.

    • Police didn't know where to find the driver of a car that had landed in a ditch.

    • The first vote in April failed with 53 per cent of the membership voting in favour, but the vote did not the meet required two-thirds majority to move forward.

    • Family and friends of Soham Lane of Harrow, Ont. are gathering this week to remember the late 16 year old who died suddenly earlier this month following a collision on Oct. 6.

    • New Democrat Leader David Eby is making a late appeal to voters to support his party even if they never have before, as the British Columbia election campaign enters the home stretch.

    • A Metro Vancouver man will spend up to four years in prison before he is deported after pleading guilty to a triple stabbing that left his sister-in-law dead and two others, including a two-year-old girl, seriously injured.

    • Lawyers for the founders of Vancouver's Drug User Liberation Front say their clients are being wrongfully criminalized for operating a club that provided untainted drugs to people who would otherwise be at the mercy of a toxic and deadly illicit drug supply.

    • Dave Lindsey began growing giant pumpkins to bring a bit of magic to his grandkids' Halloween.

    • A U.S. District Court judge in Montana has sentenced a 27-year-old man from Kelowna, B.C., to 18 months in prison for using fake names to buy guns with the aim of selling them in Canada.

    • Nearly two years after a man was stabbed to death in downtown Kelowna, RCMP have made an arrest in the case.

    • Health-care advocates say the province's plan for a new primary care agency, operating separately from Alberta Health Services, won't help with doctor shortages in Lethbridge.

    • The Vancouver Giants scored late to force overtime before winning 4-3 over the Lethbridge Hurricanes Friday night.

    • If you鈥檙e looking for something to do this long weekend, the Lethbridge Corn Maze is open and hosting its annual fundraiser on Monday.

    • A 33-year-old suspect in the Sault is facing several charges after reacting angrily when a youth knocked over their basketball net Oct. 5.

    • A suspected impaired driver who tried to walk away after running a red light and crashing into a ditch is facing several charges, Sault police said Tuesday.

    • Home sales declined in North Bay in September compared to a year earlier, but sale prices held firm, according to data from the Canadian Real Estate Association.

    N.L.

    Shopping Trends

    The Shopping Trends team is independent of the journalists at 麻豆传媒. We may earn a commission when you use our links to shop.聽Read about us.

    Stay Connected
    Follow 麻豆传媒