No Fakes Act wants to protect actors and singers from unauthorized AI replicas

A bipartisan bill seeks to create a federal law to protect actors, musicians and other entertainers from unauthorized digital replicas of their faces or voices.

He Foster Originals, Advance Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2023 (or No Forgery Law) standardizes rules about the use of a person’s faces, names, and voices. Senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) sponsored the bill.

It prevents the “production of a digital replica without the consent of the relevant individual or rights holder” unless it forms part of a news story, public affairs, sports broadcast, documentary or biographical work. The rights would apply throughout a person’s life and, for his estate, 70 years after his death.

The bill includes an exception for the use of digital duplicates for parody, satire and criticism. It also excludes commercial activities such as advertisements as long as the advertisement is news, documentary or parody.

Individuals, as well as entities such as a deceased person’s estate or a record label, can file a civil lawsuit based on the proposed rules. The bill also explicitly states that a disclaimer stating that the digital replica was unauthorized will not be considered an effective defense.

The No Counterfeits Act essentially federalizes likeness laws, which vary from state to state. (Some states don’t have basic rules about the right of publicity.) New York is one of the few states that explicitly mentions digital replicas and prohibits the use of a computer-generated replica of a deceased person for scripted work or live performances without prior permission.

The proliferation of generative artificial intelligence tools that imitate voices or create photographs of famous people has brought new attention to the laws of similarity. Earlier this year, a song featuring Drake and The Weeknd went viral on TikTok and then YouTube. But it turned out that the song used AI versions of both artists without their permission.

Some music industry experts see the similarity rules as a good way to address musicians’ concerns that their voices could be used to release AI-generated songs without their consent. However, the fragmentation of likeness laws makes it difficult to protect artists’ right to publicity across state lines.

AI duplicates also became a hot topic after SAG-AFTRA revealed that Hollywood studios proposed using digital scans of actors.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which recently called on the US government to include AI voice cloning websites as part of its list of online piracy markets, said it welcomes the draft law. “Our industry has long embraced technology and innovation, including AI, but many of the recent generative AI models infringe rights: they are essentially instruments of theft rather than constructive tools that aid human creativity,” the company said. RIAA in a statement emailed to reporters.

Another group, the Human Artistry Campaign, said in a statement that while it believes AI can provide tools that unlock human creativity, it believes it can steal copyrighted material and use artists’ names and likenesses without permission, which qualifies as “incredibly harmful to society.” .”

However, others worried that the No Counterfeiting Law would only put current laws in new clothes. Jeremy Elman, a partner at law firm Duane Morris, said the proposed bill “does not appear to offer protections beyond existing copyright or advertising laws, and could raise thorny questions regarding those well-established rights in the future”.

“AI regulation is certainly at the top of lawmakers’ lists these days, but they must be careful not to rush into creating new federal intellectual property rights that could conflict with long-standing balances in the intellectual property system,” he said.