People Inc.'s INVERSION approach—converting brand equity into owned consumer products before that equity depreciates further—is one of the few strategies whose viability does not rest on a favorable court outcome. However, it does depend on the platforms whose tools are empowering the SMBs competing against it.

Business affairs, legal, policy, strategy, underwriting and partner-facing teams each hold a piece of the problem and all rely on the shared language of IP law. SAG-AFTRA negotiations produced real protections, but contracts do not resolve the internal coordination failure within studios that leaves those protections underenforced.

Most proposed solutions depend on IP law holding in ways it may not. The real threat AI poses to IP holders is not that it can replicate them—it is that their organizations cannot make a decision fast enough to respond.