The NO FAKES Act has become one of the loudest conversations in AI and creator rights, for a simple reason. The tools to copy a person now sit on almost everyone's phone.
AI can generate a realistic version of someone's face or voice in seconds, without asking and without paying. A song in an artist's voice, a video of an athlete endorsing a product, a clip of a creator saying something they never said. Most of it never touches a contract, and it spreads faster than the person can respond.
The NO FAKES Act is one step toward addressing that. It would give people a federal right over how their likeness gets used, and it cleared a major hurdle in June 2026 when it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. In this article, we will go over what it does, who it covers, where it falls short, and what creators can do while it works its way through Congress.
What Is the NO FAKES Act?
The NO FAKES Act, formally S. 4591, is short for the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act. It would create a federal right over a person's voice and visual likeness in AI-generated content, and give people a direct way to require that unauthorized versions come down.
Lawmakers introduced it because the existing rules were built for a slower world. Protection for a person's likeness has mostly lived at the state level. It runs through a patchwork of right-of-publicity laws that differ from one state to the next, and many focus on celebrities who commercialize their image. Generative AI moved past that setup. It creates uses of a person's likeness at a speed and volume the patchwork was never built to handle. The bill sets a single national standard in its place.
The bill centers on one term, the digital replica. It means a computer-generated version of a person's voice or visual likeness that looks or sounds real, whether it is built from scratch or made by materially altering real footage. Anything the person actually performed in or approved falls outside that definition, which keeps ordinary edits and authorized work in the clear.
Why Was the NO FAKES Act Created?
Making a replica this realistic used to be slow and expensive. Generative AI changed that, which is why the bill exists now rather than five years ago. A convincing fake can take seconds and cost almost nothing. Voice cloning has caught up too, so a few seconds of audio can reproduce how someone sounds.
The concern runs across every group that lives on camera or on record. In 2024, the singer FKA twigs testified before the Senate on the bill. She described songs circulating in her voice, built with artists she had never worked with, saying things she had never sung, per Rolling Stone. A track called Heart on My Sleeve imitated Drake and The Weeknd. It pulled hundreds of thousands of plays before it came down, according to the office of Senator Chris Coons.
The common thread is control. Once a likeness is online, anyone with a short clip or a single photo can reuse it. The person it belongs to usually finds out only after it has already spread. That gap between what gets made and what anyone can stop is what pushed creators, artists, and their representatives to press for a federal answer.
Who Does the NO FAKES Act Protect?
The right at the center of that answer would apply to every individual, not only those who earn from their likeness. While its protections reach broadly, several groups are likely to feel the effects more directly than others, including:
1. Creators and Influencers
Creators build a direct relationship with an audience, which makes their likeness both valuable and easy to exploit. Fake endorsement ads that use a familiar creator's face to push products or scams are among the most common misuses. They chip away at the trust a creator spent years building.
2. Musicians and Recording Artists
For musicians, the voice is the asset. AI can clone a singer's tone from a handful of existing recordings and produce new songs or collaborations they never agreed to. Because the bill covers voice and not just image, it speaks directly to this group.
3. Actors and Public Figures
Actors face replicas of their faces and performances in content they never shot, from fake ads to manipulated scenes. SAG-AFTRA has been one of the strongest voices behind the bill for this reason. The union wants consent at the center of any AI use of a performer's likeness.
4. Athletes and Sports Personalities
Athletes carry endorsement value that scammers copy directly. One widely seen case involved an AI video of soccer legend Ronaldo Nazário promoting a game he had no part in. It stayed up on Facebook until Meta's own Oversight Board ordered it removed. For an athlete, a fake endorsement can also collide with the real sponsorship deals that make up their income.
What Does the NO FAKES Act Actually Do?
In practice, the NO FAKES Act focuses on a few key areas:
1. Creates Federal Likeness Protections
For the first time, the bill would give people a national right to control how their voice and visual likeness appear in digital replicas. Holland & Knight notes this right would reach everyone, not only the public figures who currently lean on state right-of-publicity law. It is treated as licensable property. A living person can license it for up to 10 years at a time, and the right survives death for up to 70 years if it stays in active use.
2. Addresses Unauthorized Digital Replicas
The bill creates civil liability for producing or distributing an unauthorized digital replica. That liability reaches the companies that distribute them. In defined cases, it also reaches the platforms that host them once they know the depicted person did not consent. The bill still protects speech that the First Amendment covers, including news, commentary, satire, and parody. It aims at impersonation and leaves that kind of expression alone.
3. Defines Responsibilities for Online Platforms
The bill sets up a notice-and-takedown process modeled on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A person can notify a platform to remove an unauthorized replica. The poster can then file a counter-notice, and if no lawsuit follows within 14 days, the content is restored. Platforms are not required to scan for replicas on their own. Their safe harbor depends on responding promptly to valid notices and registering an agent with the U.S. Copyright Office. Knowingly filing a false counter-notice carries a penalty of $25,000 or actual damages plus fees, whichever is greater.
What the NO FAKES Act Doesn't Solve
A law is a foundation, not a finished system. Even at full strength, the NO FAKES Act would leave real gaps in day-to-day protection.
- It cannot stop every misuse the moment it happens, because removal still starts after content is posted.
- It does not detect unauthorized content on its own, so someone has to find the fake first.
- It does not monitor platforms continuously, which means misuse that no one reports can stay up.
- It does not replace creator-controlled permissions, since the law sets a floor rather than defining what any single creator wants to allow.
None of this is a knock on the bill. Laws and tools simply do different jobs. The law can set the right, and the day-to-day work of finding, flagging, and deciding still needs a system built for it.
What Creators Can Do Today
While the bill moves through Congress, there are steps creators can take now to stay ahead of misuse.
- Understand your rights. Some AI misuse is already covered by state laws like Tennessee's ELVIS Act and the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, which is in effect today.
- Follow the bill. Track the NO FAKES Act as it moves to the Senate floor and the House, and add your voice through the industry groups and representatives carrying it, the way SAG-AFTRA and the recording industry did to move it this far.
- Document unauthorized uses. Save links, screenshots, and dates when you come across a fake, since a clear record matters if you ever need to act on it.
- Report misuse through the channels that exist. Most major platforms have reporting paths for impersonation and manipulated media.
- Use the legal tools available where the stakes warrant it, and talk to a professional for anything serious.
- Set clear rules around your likeness before problems arise, deciding what AI use you allow, what fans are free to create, and what should come down That last step is the one most within a creator's control, and it points to where all of this is heading.
The Future of Likeness Rights in an AI World
The NO FAKES Act is an important milestone. It is the furthest a federal likeness bill has moved through Congress, and it points to a real shift, one where consent starts to decide how AI can use a person.
It is not law yet, though. The bill still needs a full Senate vote and a companion version in the House, and lawmakers are working through the free-speech questions raised in committee. GovTrack puts its chance of enactment at 27 percent, which makes it a strong signal to watch even if it is far from settled.
AI, meanwhile, is not slowing down. The law is only one part of the answer, and the other part is practical. The bill points to a world where the first question about any AI likeness is whether the person said yes, and creators can start working that way now, without waiting for a final vote. The ones who define how their likeness can be used today will stay ahead of the change.
That is the gap PersonaShield is built to close. It gives creators one place to set the safeguards on their likeness, so protection and fan creation run from a single set of rules they control.
