New federal law locks voices and faces into 70-year copyright-like control

What it does

The NO FAKES Act creates a new federal property right protecting individuals' voices and visual likenesses from unauthorized use in AI-generated digital replicas. It gives people (and their heirs for 70 years after death) the exclusive right to authorize deepfakes, requires online platforms to remove infringing content upon notice, and imposes civil liability of $5,000–$750,000 per violation on creators and distributors of unauthorized digital replicas or tools designed to make them.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core mechanism is creating a new federal intellectual property right in voices and visual likenesses, enforceable against digital replicas. While framed as consumer protection against deepfakes, it functions as a broad property-rights grant with significant restrictions on speech, parody, and commentary—making it simultaneously a consumer-protection measure and a speech-limiting IP expansion.

What the text implies

• The 70-year post-mortem right in deceased individuals' voices and likenesses may restrict historical documentaries, biographical films, and artistic works depicting real people, even with disclaimers or fictionalization, unless they fall within narrow safe harbors.
• Online platforms face liability for user-uploaded content unless they implement costly digital-fingerprinting systems and respond to takedown notices within hours—shifting enforcement burden from rights-holders to intermediaries and potentially increasing platform moderation costs.

The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.

Who stands to gain

talent agencies and entertainment estates (post-mortem licensing revenue); sound recording artists and their heirs (exclusive licensing rights); digital-fingerprinting and content-identification technology vendors