These Bills Will Protect Child Influencers — Here’s How
By Movieguide® Contributor
California Governor Gavin Newsom just signed two bills into law designed to protect child influencers.
“One of those bills, California Assembly Bill 1880, expands California’s longtime Coogan Law protections for child performers to influencers and online content creators who are minors,” The Hollywood Reporter wrote.
The Coogan Law was created in 1939, mandating that 15% of a child performer’s earnings be saved in a trust until they reach adulthood. However, the Coogan Law only protects child actors and performers. The legislation that was just passed will protect child influencers on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and more.
The other bill that was passed, Senate Bill 764, “states that online influencers featuring children in at least 30 percent of their output must put away a percentage of gross earnings in a trust for the minor to access when they become an adult.”
It also “requires creators to maintain records of income generated from content featuring children and how many minutes minors appeared in that content, among other information.”
“There’s been this glaring gap,” Gov. Newsom said in a video posted to X. “And this legislation basically closes that loophole.”
Demi Lovato, a former child star who has been outspoken about supporting young people in the entertainment industry and who appeared in the video alongside Gov. Newsom, called the bills “essentially the Coogan Law for the digital age.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Lovato’s feelings on child stars:
When asked how she would react if her future daughter wanted to be a performer, Lovato said, “I’d say, ‘Let’s study music theory and prepare you for the day you turn 18, because it’s not happening before that. Not because I don’t believe in you or love you or want you to be happy, but because I want you to have a childhood, the childhood that I didn’t have.’”
Lovato would also encourage her daughter to have a “backup plan,” which is “something I wish I’d done because sometimes I think it’s time for me to move on, but I’m in this weird position in my career because I still rely on music for my income.”
Lovato experienced a lot of trauma from her childhood stardom and even said that she has a hard time remembering much after the first CAMP ROCK.
“I think I’d passed the threshold of what I could withstand emotionally and physically,” she told The Hollywood Reporter, as she realized it could be a trauma response. “And I didn’t realize that child stardom could be traumatic — and it isn’t traumatic for everyone, but for me, it was.”
This legislation is similar to a bill passed in Illinois earlier this summer that “requires influencers who feature their children to pay them for their work,” per ABC News.
“More specifically, it requires that children age 16 and under be compensated if, within a 30-day period, they are in at least 30% of a video or online content for which the adult, whether a parent or caregiver, is being paid,” the outlet continued. “The person making the videos in which the child appears is responsible for setting aside gross earnings in a trust account for the child to receive at age 18.”
