New federal law locks deceased persons' likenesses under 70-year copyright-style monopoly

What it does

The NO FAKES Act creates a new federal property right in a person's voice and visual likeness, allowing individuals (or their heirs) to control and license AI-generated digital replicas of themselves. It imposes liability on anyone who creates, distributes, or sells unauthorized deepfakes or deepfake-creation tools, with statutory damages ranging from $5,000 to $750,000 per violation. Online platforms must register with the Copyright Office, remove flagged content, and implement repeat-infringer policies to avoid liability.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core mechanism is creating and enforcing a new intellectual property right in voice and visual likeness, with statutory damages and safe harbors for online platforms. It is fundamentally a property-rights and liability statute, not a consumer protection or privacy measure, despite framing around protecting individuals.

What the text implies

• Post-mortem right lasts up to 70 years after death (renewable in 5-year increments), creating a long-tail monopoly on deceased persons' likenesses that may restrict historical, biographical, and educational uses without explicit licensing.
• The definition of 'digital replica' includes 'materially altered' versions of authorized performances, potentially capturing legitimate remixes, edits, and transformative works that do not involve AI generation.
• Safe harbor for online platforms requires registration with Copyright Office and adoption of repeat-infringer policies, creating a new compliance burden and potential liability exposure for smaller platforms that cannot afford robust content-matching technology.
• First Amendment carve-outs for news, satire, and commentary are qualified by a 'false impression of authenticity' test and exclude sexually explicit deepfakes entirely, creating ambiguity about what speech is protected and inviting litigation over intent and context.
• Subpoena power allows right holders to unmask alleged violators without court review (clerk issues subpoena on proper form), potentially enabling harassment or privacy invasion against users who create parody or critical content.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

The bill protects individuals from unauthorized deepfakes and AI impersonation—a genuine public benefit as synthetic media becomes more realistic and harmful. However, it creates a perpetual post-mortem property right (lasting up to 70 years after death) that may restrict legitimate speech, parody, and historical commentary; the broad definition of 'digital replica' and vague carve-outs for news and satire create litigation risk and potential chilling effects on fair use and First Amendment expr

Who stands to gain

• estates and heirs of deceased public figures
• talent agencies and rights management firms
• online platforms (via safe harbor if compliant)
• copyright licensing intermediaries

Named in the bill

Copyright Office, Register of Copyrights, online service providers, digital music providers, sound recording artists, right holders, interactive computer services

Where it stands

13 cosponsors: 7 Republicans, 6 Democrats.

• Apr 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
• Apr 9, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the 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

53 lobbying clients named this bill on 79 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $102,686,213 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.

Christopher Coons, the sponsor, reported $1,402,800 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
• Meta Platforms, Inc. and Various Subsidiaries — $5,990,000 on 1 filing
• American Medical Association — $5,643,000 on 2 filings
• Amazon.com Services LLC — $4,360,000 on 1 filing

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.