Sponsors (10)
Official title: To protect intellectual property rights in the voice and visual likeness of individuals, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 20, 2026 by Maria Elvira Salazar · Last progress May 20, 2026
The bill gives individuals strong control and remedies over use of their voice and visual likeness in digital replicas—helping victims and enabling estate monetization—but imposes new liabilities, compliance costs, and stricter notice rules that could chill platforms, creators, archival uses, and contestation of takedowns.
Most people (living and deceased) gain exclusive legal control over authorization of their voice and visual likeness in digital replicas, preventing unauthorized commercial or deceptive uses.
Right holders (and their estates) can license, transfer, and register post‑mortem rights and renewal claims, creating a clearer process for monetization and estate management of digital likenesses.
Victims of unauthorized digital replicas get a civil cause of action with remedies — damages, injunctive relief, and attorney’s fees — giving them practical tools to stop misuse and seek compensation.
Online platforms and interactive services face reduced §230 protections, greatly increasing litigation risk and likely chilling hosting of user content and innovation on many services.
App stores, hosting providers, developers, and small online businesses will incur significant new compliance costs and operational burdens from registration, notice handling, takedowns, and subpoena responses.
Stricter counter‑notification requirements (notary, physical signature, jurisdiction consent) and heavy penalties for misrepresentation may deter users from contesting takedowns and raise legal costs for defendants and creators.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a new exclusive right letting individuals (and rights-holders) control AI-generated voice or visual "digital replicas" and defines covered services, exclusions, and related terms.
Creates a new legal right letting a person (and their rights-holders) control whether a highly realistic computer-generated representation of their voice or visual likeness — a “digital replica” — may be used. It defines key terms (digital replica, digital fingerprint, interactive computer service, right holder, sound recording artist), sets the scope of covered online services, and establishes who may authorize or block generation and use of such replicas. The section is primarily definitional and sets the framework for later rules or obligations about digital replicas and platform responsibilities.