This article uses legal history as a vantage point for reflecting on the current moment in the debate about AI and performers’ rights. Current debates often refer to ‘creators’ and/or ‘copyright’ as generic categories denoting both performers and authors. Legal history, I argue, sharpens the critical lens on current debate by drawing our attention to what today remains different about the legal rules protecting performers. That difference, at present, leaves performers less well placed to deal with the challenge of AI than authors and also goes to the heart of Equity’s current reform proposals. That difference should now be debated.