Crestline Global Partners joins as enforcement counsel
The registry’s enforcement desk now has counsel behind it: CGP brings entertainment, AI-governance, and IP-enforcement practice across four offices and three legal frameworks to every license Semblance issues.
Every Semblance license carries a promise that outlives the transaction: if your likeness shows up somewhere it wasn’t licensed to be, someone does something about it. Today that promise gets a law firm behind it.
Semblance has retained Crestline Global Partners (CGP) as enforcement counsel for the registry. CGP practices at exactly the intersection this problem lives on — entertainment & media, emerging technology and AI governance, IP enforcement and brand protection, and privacy — with offices in San Francisco, New York, London, and Tel Aviv covering U.S. federal and state, UK, and EU frameworks.
What the partnership covers
- Escalation beyond the takedown. When a platform report isn’t enough — repeat infringers, commercial misuse, off-platform hosts — matters escalate to CGP under pre-negotiated terms, so talent never starts from a blank retainer.
- Statutory muscle. Demand letters and filings built on the digital-replica statutes now in force — California’s AB 1836 and AB 2602, Tennessee’s ELVIS Act, and their siblings — plus right-of-publicity, privacy, and unfair-competition claims where they fit better.
- Cross-border reach. U.S., UK, and EU coverage from one engagement, which matters because unlicensed use does not respect jurisdiction.
- Paperwork designed for enforcement. CGP reviewed the Likeness License schema so that every certificate, consent record, and audit hash the registry produces is evidence-shaped from day one.
What it means for the take rate
Semblance keeps 12–18% of each license. Part of what that buys is boring and essential — escrow, verification, provenance infrastructure. And part of it is this: a standing enforcement desk, monitoring hooks, and counsel on call. Talent on the registry get protection as a feature of listing, not as a bill that arrives after the damage.
The full offering — monitoring, the takedown desk, and legal escalation, with honest notes about what takedowns can and cannot fix — is documented on the Protection page.
Pre-launch note: the enforcement desk begins operating with wave 01 onboarding. Details of covered matters and thresholds are part of each talent agreement; nothing on this page is legal advice.