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"Big beautiful bill" could halt and override state AI regulation

Several states have laws on the books that restrict using a performer’s likeness or voice without permission.

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There’s no comprehensive federal law that prohibits the unauthorized use of someone’s voice, image or likeness for commercial purposes — let alone an AI copy.
There’s no comprehensive federal law that prohibits the unauthorized use of someone’s voice, image or likeness for commercial purposes — let alone an AI copy.
Alfredo Estrella/AFP via Getty Images

A Senate committee advanced a 10-year moratorium on state and local AI regulation as part of the Big Beautiful Bill already passed by the House. It would override more than 100 local laws already on the books and has gotten pushback from both sides of the aisle, as well as some big industries like entertainment.

In the age of AI, voice actors like Tim Friedlander don’t just have to worry about dodging a cold or acing their next audition. Now, there are voice clones.

“For voice actors who are very prolific, who have a massive amount of content out there, the chances of them hearing something that sounds like them is pretty high and has happened,” he said.

Friedlander, who founded the National Association of Voice Actors, said that these clones exist in a legal gray area. There’s no comprehensive federal law that prohibits the unauthorized use of someone’s voice, image or likeness for commercial purposes, let alone an AI copy.

But some states have taken the lead, like Tennessee with its “Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act” — a.k.a. the ELVIS Act — passed last year.

“It made very clear that one component of an individual's right of publicity is not only their actual voice, but a simulation of the voice of the individual,” said Dominic Rota, an intellectual property attorney in Nashville.

At least nine other states have enacted or proposed similar protections. California, for example, restricts using AI to replicate someone’s voice or image after death.

A federal law to ban unauthorized digital clones failed to pass last year but has been reintroduced.

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