SB 1050 clear and conspicuous disclosure: the definition

SB 1050 defines clear and conspicuous as difficult to miss and easy to read in the ad's medium. Map those words to caption contrast and placement controls.

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SB 1050 defines a "clear and conspicuous disclosure" as one that is "difficult to miss, easily understandable, and presented in a manner that a reasonable consumer would notice, read, and comprehend, taking into account the medium, format, and context in which the advertisement appears." It sets no font size or duration; it is a reasonable-consumer test applied to your actual video.

Quotes are from the chaptered text on the leginfo page, read 2026-10-01. This is not legal advice. The caption controls are from Sume's Video captions docs.

What are the parts of the definition?

Three phrases do the work: difficult to miss, easily understandable, and noticed, read and comprehended by a reasonable consumer given the medium. In a short vertical video, "medium" includes phone-sized screens and fast scrolling.

SB 1050 definition mapped to Sume caption controls, read 2026-10-01.
Words in the billCaption control in the docs
Difficult to missblack-outline: white fill on a thick black outline, mid-frame
Notice, read, comprehendtypography fields such as font_size_ratio and safe_width_ratio
Medium and formatplacement: anchor_ratio and landscape_anchor_ratio
Exact wordingAuthored cues / segments skip speech-to-text

What wording does the bill expect?

Subdivision (c) says the disclosure shall use wording substantially similar to "this performance features a synthetic performer" or "no human performer is depicted." Because cues carry your own text with start and end, you can burn that wording for the stretch you choose, on a clip that has no speech at all.

How do I place and style the line?

Send the finished clip's public video_url to POST /v1/video-captions with style and a design override. placement.anchor_ratio is the line centre as a fraction of frame height, so you can keep it clear of platform UI. Numbers outside their documented range return a 400 instead of rendering wrong. For style choices see CapCut-style captions.

Is a styled caption enough?

The docs do not say any style satisfies SB 1050, and the bill's test is about a reasonable consumer, so verify the exported file on a phone: can you read it in one glance, on top of the busiest frame? If not, raise contrast, size or duration and render again.

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