New federal law locks down voice and likeness rights—for 70 years after death
H.R. 2794 — NO FAKES Act of 2025 · Filed by Maria Salazar (R-FL) · 10 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 9, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The NO FAKES Act creates a new federal property right in a person's voice and visual likeness, protecting against unauthorized AI-generated digital replicas. It gives individuals and their heirs the power to license or block the use of their likeness in deepfakes and similar synthetic media, with statutory damages ranging from $5,000 to $750,000 per violation. Online platforms must register with the Copyright Office, remove infringing content upon notice, and face liability if they fail to do so in good faith.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is the creation of a new federal property right in voice and visual likeness, enforceable through civil litigation with statutory damages. It is fundamentally a copyright-adjacent intellectual property statute, not a consumer protection or privacy measure, despite framing around 'protecting' individuals.
What the text implies
- Post-mortem rights lasting up to 70 years after death create a new form of perpetual intellectual property that may restrict historical, biographical, and transformative uses of deceased public figures' likenesses for decades.
- The requirement that online platforms register designated agents and maintain Copyright Office directories creates a new compliance infrastructure; platforms that fail to register lose safe-harbor protection entirely, potentially exposing them to $750,000-per-work liability.
- The definition of 'digital replica' excludes 'remixing, mastering, or digital remastering' but the boundary between remastering and unauthorized alteration is undefined, creating litigation risk for music producers and archivists.
- The 'willful avoidance of knowledge' standard for liability applies to both platforms and individuals, potentially criminalizing negligence or recklessness in a way that chills innovation in generative AI and media tools.
- Satire, parody, and commentary are protected only if they do not 'create the false impression that the work is an authentic sound recording' — a subjective standard that may require courts to police artistic intent and viewer perception.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill protects individuals from non-consensual deepfakes and synthetic media impersonation—a genuine public harm—and creates a private right of action with meaningful remedies. However, it grants broad post-mortem rights lasting up to 70 years, potentially restricting free speech, parody, and historical/biographical uses; the safe harbors for online platforms are conditional on registration and good-faith compliance, creating compliance burdens that may chill legitimate speech; and the defini
Who stands to gain
- entertainment industry (actors, musicians, sound recording artists)
- talent management and licensing firms
- copyright enforcement and litigation services
- digital forensics and fingerprinting technology providers
Named in the bill
Copyright Office, Register of Copyrights, online services (platforms, search engines, cloud storage, music providers), sound recording artists, digital music providers, interactive computer services, right holders (individuals, heirs, licensees)
Where it stands
10 cosponsors: 6 Democrats, 4 Republicans.
- Apr 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Apr 9, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
39 lobbying clients named this bill on 64 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $92,266,213 in lobbying spend. A filing names 8 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 99% of bills with at least one filing.
Maria Salazar, the sponsor, reported $541,848 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A. — $54,660,000 on 3 filings
- Google Client Services LLC — $6,920,000 on 2 filings
- American Medical Association — $5,643,000 on 2 filings
- Recording Industry Association of America — $4,266,270 on 2 filings
- American Association for Justice — $3,610,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (32,591 characters) on Aug 20, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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