Model Francheska Pujols filed a lawsuit this year against the retailer Rainbow Shops in the New York Supreme Court, claiming the company took photographs from routine commercial shoots and used AI to create new images of her in poses and settings she never approved. ArentFox Schiff reports that Rainbow denies wrongdoing and the case remains at an early stage, but the dispute sharpens a question every model faces from their first agency application. Each set of digitals creates a clean, unedited record of a model’s face and body, and few models stop to ask who owns that record.
What modeling digitals are and why agencies ask for them
Digitals are plain, unretouched photographs that show a model exactly as they look in person. The industry still calls them polas or polaroids, a name carried over from the instant cameras bookers once used at castings, and ModelGlance explains that agencies now use the terms interchangeably for the same clean format shot against a white wall in natural light. Bookers rely on them to judge a new face, and clients use them to compare models side by side when casting. A portfolio shows what a creative team can build around a model, whereas digitals show the starting point that team works from.
What agencies want to see in a set of digitals
Agencies publish strict rules because an edited submission tells them nothing useful. Wilhelmina’s Rocky Mountains office asks for natural, well-lit colour photos with minimal or no makeup, and it states outright that it will not consider submissions sent with FaceTune, Instagram, Snapchat or any other filter.
Clothing follows the same principle. Photographer Paul Holland advises form-fitting outfits in plain neutral colours, since agencies reject baggy clothing that hides a model’s shape, and he treats light concealer and lip balm as the limit for makeup. A standard set, according to ModelGlance, covers five poses: a face portrait, a three-quarter face shot, a full-length front, a full-length back and a strict profile. Fashion and commercial agencies part ways on expression, with fashion boards preferring a neutral face while commercial agencies want at least one smiling shot.
Who owns the copyright in modeling digitals
Ownership turns on two facts, namely who took the photograph and which country’s law applies. In the United States, the Copyright Office’s Circular 42 names the person who takes a photo as its author and initial copyright owner, with a limited exception for works made for hire. A model who shoots their own digitals on a self-timer owns them outright, while a model who hires a freelance photographer walks away without the copyright unless the photographer signs it over in writing. When agency staff shoot digitals as part of their job, the Copyright Office confirms that the employer holds the copyright under the work-made-for-hire rule.
The United Kingdom takes the same photographer-first approach, since the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 recognised photographers as the owners of commissioned photographs for the first time in UK law.
India reverses that default. Section 17(b) of the Copyright Act, 1957 provides that when a photographer takes a photograph for valuable consideration at the instance of another person, that person becomes the first owner of the copyright unless an agreement says otherwise. A model in Delhi who books and pays a photographer for digitals owns the resulting images, even though the photographer remains the author under Section 2(d)(iv), and a single clause in the photographer’s terms flips that ownership straight back.
Owning the photo versus controlling the likeness
Copyright settles who controls the image as a creative work, while a separate body of law governs the person who appears in it. The right of publicity lets individuals control and profit from the commercial use of their likeness, so an agency that owns the copyright in a model’s digitals still needs that model’s permission before putting their face in an advertisement.
New York now goes further. Under the Fashion Workers Act, which took effect on 19 June 2025, agencies and clients must obtain a model’s clear written consent before creating or using a digital replica, and the New York State Department of Labor confirms that any power of attorney covering a model’s digital replica became void on that date. The consent must spell out the scope, purpose, rate of pay and duration of the use, and clients who break the rule face civil penalties of $3,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for each one after that. The law excludes routine colour correction and minor retouching, which, as Benesch notes, leaves ordinary post-production alone while drawing a firm line at AI-generated likenesses.
That line matters for digitals in particular, because an unstyled set of images taken from several angles gives an AI system exactly the material it needs to build a convincing replica. Benesch also reports that some models who submitted 3D body scans later discovered they had unknowingly signed away rights to their body images.
Protecting your digitals before you send them
Protection starts with paperwork. Models who pay a photographer should agree in writing who owns the files and where each party can use them, and models signing with an agency should read the representation agreement for any clause covering AI or body scans before they sign. These contract questions sit inside a wider imbalance of bargaining power between models and agencies, which FLJ examined in its piece on employment law and the rights of fashion models.
The Pujols case will take time to resolve, although the law already gives models a clear starting position. Copyright in digitals follows the shutter in New York and London and follows the payment in India, while turning a model’s face into an AI replica now requires a separate signed consent in New York. A model who knows both answers before sending a single digital keeps control over how their face gets used long after the casting ends.
FASHION LAW JOURNAL INSIDER
Join designers, brand founders and fashion lawyers who get the biggest brand battles, IP fights and career moves in fashion law, straight to their inbox.
