Video game performers are going on strike for the second time in a decade.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director and chief negotiator of performers union SAG-AFTRA, called a strike Thursday on behalf of thousands of video game actors covered by the Interactive Media Agreement. The strike takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

The announcement came days after the national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists granted Crabtree-Ireland the authority to initiate a walkout and nearly a year after union members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.

On Saturday, SAG-AFTRA warned that a work stoppage was imminent if the union and the video game producers could not iron out contract terms related to artificial intelligence.

“We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse A.I. to the detriment of our members. Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live — and work — with, we will be here, ready to negotiate,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement.

The Interactive Media Agreement — a contract covering roughly 2,600 performers who do voice-over and motion-capture work in the video game industry — expired in November 2022.

“We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations,” Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers, said in a statement.

“We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, including historic wage increases and additional safety provisions. Our offer is directly responsive to SAG-AFTRA’s concerns and extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the IMA. These terms are among the strongest in the entertainment industry.”

Game actors are seeking a new deal that would require producers to obtain their consent before reproducing their voices or likenesses with AI. They also have demanded compensation when AI is used to replicate their performances, as well as wage increases, more rest time and set medics for hazardous jobs.

Performers in the video game industry say they are especially vulnerable to AI due to the invisible nature of voice-over work.

“Our resolve is unwavering and should not be tested,” Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement released Saturday.

“We are steadfast in our commitment to our membership who work this contract and whose extraordinary performances are the heart and soul of the world’s most popular video games. Time is running out for the companies to make a deal.”

Cooling replied that the companies were negotiating “in good faith” and pointed out that the two parties had “reached tentative agreements on the vast majority of the proposals.”

“Based on that progress, we remain optimistic that a deal is within reach,” she said.

Video game actors last went on strike in October 2016, before AI was a major concern.

Back then, performers were seeking residual-like payments based on the number of physical and digital game copies sold — similar to how film and TV actors are compensated for their work.

Both residuals and AI emerged as sticking points during last year’s strike by Hollywood actors. That walkout lasted 118 days and culminated in an agreement containing wage increases, AI protections and streaming bonuses, among other gains.

The California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld Proposition 22, the voter initiative that allows Uber, Lyft and other gig economy companies to classify drivers for their ride-hailing and delivery services as independent contractors rather than as employees.

In a unanimous decision released Thursday morning, the state’s top court rejected claims brought by a group of drivers and unions that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with lawmakers’ authority over matters dealing with worker compensation.

The ruling, which was expected following a lopsided hearing in the case in May, marks the end of a years-long legal fight over Proposition 22, which essentially carved out a new classification for workers who are entitled to limited benefits but not the array of rights granted full-fledged employees.

Because the law has remained in effect throughout the legal process, the decision will not change how delivery and ride-hailing services operate in California. Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other gig companies had argued their business models depended on the law being upheld and threatened to shut down in California if it was struck down.

The decision has sweeping implications for the million-plus people who drive for various app-based companies in California. Some of these workers have raised concerns over low wages, minimal workplace protections and exploitative practices they say they face. The decision also is likely to have ripple effects on drivers across the U.S., as Uber has pushed for laws similar to Proposition 22 in other states .

The decision Thursday falls in line with comments made by justices in May when they heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the law. Their line of questioning suggested they were not persuaded by the argument that Proposition 22 should be overturned because it interferes with the state Legislature’s authority to provide workers’ compensation protections to drivers.

Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other companies poured upward of $200 million into a campaign to sway voters in favor of Proposition 22 in 2020. It passed with 59% of the vote and went into effect soon after.

Under the law, drivers are considered to be their own employers, a designation that frees the companies they drive for from having to provide the full slate benefits that traditional employees in the state are entitled to, such as overtime, sick leave and a minimum wage.

The Service Employees International Union and a group of drivers first brought the lawsuit challenging Proposition 22 in January 2021, just after the law went into effect. They unsuccessfully sought to take the case directly to the California Supreme Court and were left to pursue the case in a lower court.

Then, in a sweeping decision in August 2021, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled that Proposition 22 was unconstitutional and unenforceable. The law failed to pass constitutional muster, Roesch wrote, because it infringed on the power of the Legislature, explicitly granted by the state Constitution, to regulate compensation for workers’ injuries. “If the people wish to use their initiative power to restrict or qualify a ‘plenary’ and ‘unlimited’ power granted to the Legislature, they must first do so by initiative constitutional amendment, not by initiative statute,” the judge wrote. In March 2023, a split three-judge panel from a state appeals court largely reversed that ruling, finding the law did not impede the Legislature’s authority and upholding the legality of the law’s provision classifying drivers as contractors. Supporters of the law celebrated the ruling as a “historic victory for the nearly 1.4 million drivers who rely on the independence and flexibility of app-based work to earn income, and for the integrity of California’s initiative system.”

Journalist Javier Cabral wanted to test Google’s much-hyped, experimental artificial intelligence-powered search results. So he typed out a question about a topic he knew intimately: the Long Beach bakery Gusto Bread’s coffee.

In less than a second, Google’s AI summarized information about the bakery in a few sentences and bullet points. But according to Cabral, the summary wasn’t original — it appeared to be lifted from an article he wrote last year for the local food, community and culture publication L.A. Taco, where he serves as the editor in chief. For a previous story, he’d spent at least five days working on a feature about the bakery, arriving at 4 a.m. to report on the bread making process.

As Cabral saw it, the search giant’s AI was ripping him off.

“The average consumer that just wants to go check it out, they’re probably not going to read [the article] anymore” Cabral said in an interview. “When you break it down like that, it’s a little enraging for sure.”

The rise of AI is just the latest existential threat to news organizations such as Cabral’s, which are fighting to survive amid a rapidly changing media and information environment.

News outlets have struggled to attract subscribers and advertising dollars in the internet age. And social media platforms such as Facebook, which publishers depended on to get their content to a massive audience, have largely pivoted away from news. Now, with the growth of AI thanks to companies including Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, publishers fear catastrophic consequences will result from digital programs automatically scraping information from their archives and delivering it to audiences for free.

“There’s something that’s very fundamentally unfair about this,” said Danielle Coffey, president and chief executive of the News/Media Alliance, which represents publications including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. “What will happen is there won’t be a business model for us in a scenario where they use our own work to compete with us, and that’s something we’re very worried about.”

Tech companies leading the charge on AI say their tools are not engaged in copyright infringement and can drive traffic to publishers.

Google said in a statement that it designed its AI Overviews — the summaries that appear when people enter search queries — to “provide a snapshot of relevant information from multiple web pages.” The companies also provide links with the summaries so people can learn more.

AI and machine learning could provide useful tools for publishers when doing research or creating reader recommendations. But for many journalistic outlets, the AI revolution represents yet another consequence of the tech behemoths becoming the middlemen between the content producers and their consumers, and then taking the spoils for themselves.

“For the past 20 years, big tech has dictated the business model for news by essentially mandating how news is distributed, either through search or social, and this has turned out to be pretty disastrous for most news organizations,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

L.A. Taco operates on a tight budget; its publisher doesn’t take a salary. The site makes most of its money through memberships, so if people are getting the information directly from Google instead of paying to read L.A. Taco’s articles, that’s a major problem. Above, a staff meeting at its Chinatown office.

(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)

To respond to the problem, news organizations have taken dramatically different approaches. Some, including the Associated Press, the Financial Times and News Corp., the owner of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, have signed licensing deals to allow San Francisco-based OpenAI to use their content in exchange for payment. Vox Media and the Atlantic have also struck deals with the firm.

Others have taken their fights to court.

The New York Times in December sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that both companies used its articles to train their digital assistants and share text of paywalled stories to its users without compensation. The newspaper estimated that those actions resulted in billions of dollars in damages.

Separately, last month Forbes threatened legal action against AI startup Perplexity, accusing it of plagiarism. After receiving Forbes’ letter, Perplexity said it changed the way it presented sources and adjusted the prompting for its AI models.

The company said it has been developing a revenue sharing program with publishers.

The New York Times said in its lawsuit that its battle against AI isn’t just about getting paid for content now; it’s about protecting the future of the journalism profession.

“With less revenue, news organizations will have fewer journalists able to dedicate time and resources to important, in-depth stories, which creates a risk that those stories will go untold,” the newspaper said in its lawsuit. “Less journalism will be produced, and the cost to society will be enormous.”

OpenAI said that the New York Times’ lawsuit was without merit and that it has been unable to reproduce examples the newspaper has cited of ChatGPT regurgitating paywalled articles. The company said publishers have a way to opt out of their sites being used to train AI tools. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.

The Associated Press, the Financial Times and News Corp., the owner of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, have signed licensing deals to allow San Francisco-based OpenAI to use their content in exchange for payment.

(Michael Dwyer / Associated Press)

“Microsoft and OpenAI have the process entirely backwards,” Davida Brook, a partner at law firm Susman Godfrey, which is representing the New York Times, said in a statement. “Neither The New York Times nor other creators should have to opt out of having their works stolen.”

The legal war is spreading. In April, eight publications owned by private equity firm Alden Global Capital also accused OpenAI and Microsoft of using and providing information from its news stories without payment.

In some cases, OpenAI’s chat tool provided incorrect information attributed to the publications, Frank Pine, executive editor for MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing, said in a statement. For example, according to Pine, OpenAI said that the Mercury News recommended injecting disinfectants to treat COVID-19 and the Denver Post published research suggesting that smoking cures asthma. Neither publication has made such claims.

“[W]hen they’re not delivering the actual verbatim reporting of our hard-working journalists, they misattribute bogus information to our news publications, damaging our credibility,” Pine said.

OpenAI said that it was “not previously aware” of Alden’s concerns and that it is “actively engaged in constructive partnerships and conversations with many news organizations around the world to explore opportunities, discuss any concerns, and provide solutions.”

One such partnership is OpenAI’s recent deal with News Corp., which allows the tech company’s tools to display content from news outlets in response to user questions and access content from the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and publications in the United Kingdom and Australia to train its AI models. The deal was valued at more than $250 million over five years, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources. News Corp and OpenAI declined to comment on the financial terms.

“This landmark accord is not an end, but the beginning of a beautiful friendship in which we are jointly committed to creating and delivering insight and integrity instantaneously,” Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp. said in a statement.

“We are committed to a thriving ecosystem of publishers and creators by making it easier for people to find their content through our tools,” OpenAI said in a statement.

Although OpenAI has cut deals with some publishers, the tech industry has argued that it should be able to train its AI models on content available online and bring up relevant information under the “fair use” doctrine, which allows for the limited reproduction of content without permission from the copyright holder.

“As long as these companies aren’t reproducing verbatim what these news sites are putting out, we believe they are well within their legal rights to offer this content to users,” said Chris MacKenzie, spokesman for Chamber of Progress, an industry group that represents companies including Google and Meta. “At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that nobody has a copyright on facts.”

But outlets including the New York Times reject such fair-use claims, arguing that in some cases the chatbots do reproduce their content, unfairly profiting from their thoroughly researched and fact-checked work. The situation is even more difficult for smaller outlets such as L.A. Taco, which can’t afford to sue OpenAI or develop their own AI platforms.

Located in L.A.’s Chinatown with four full-time workers and two part-timers, L.A. Taco operates on a tight budget; its publisher doesn’t take a salary. The site makes most of its money through memberships, so if people are getting the information directly from Google instead of paying to read L.A. Taco’s articles, that’s a major problem.

Legislation is another potential way to deal with big tech’s disruption of the journalism industry. The California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member, is sponsoring a state bill known as the California Journalism Preservation Act, which would require digital advertising giants to pay news outlets for accessing their articles, either through a predetermined fee or through an amount set by arbitration. Most publishers would have to spend 70% of the funds received on journalists’ salaries. Another bill lawmakers are considering would tax large tech platforms for the data they collect from users and pump the money into news organizations by giving them a tax credit for employing full-time journalists.

“The way out of this is some type of regulation,” USC’s Kahn said. “Congress can’t get anything done so that basically gives these platforms free rein to do what they want with very little consequence.”

Times editorial library director Cary Schneider contributed to this report.