A Senate bill would create a federal digital replica right

The persona

This entry does not profile an operator's persona. It reads a federal bill's own text to establish what protection, if any, a real individual would have against an unauthorised AI-generated replica of their voice or likeness, a question that reaches any virtual-persona project built around a real performer. The bill's Congress.gov record shows the NO FAKES Act of 2024, formally the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act, was introduced in the Senate on 31 July 2024 by Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

What the documents establish

The bill text as introduced would create a federal "digital replication right," giving each individual, or a right holder who has acquired that right, authority over the use of their voice or visual likeness in a "digital replica." The text defines a digital replica narrowly: a newly created, computer-generated, highly realistic electronic representation, embodied in a sound recording, image or audiovisual work, in which the actual individual did not perform, or a version of an existing performance whose fundamental character has been materially altered. Standard remixing, sampling or remastering authorised by a copyright holder is expressly excluded. "Individual" covers a human being, living or dead.

Congress.gov's own tracker records the bill's status as retrieved on 16 September 2026 as introduced and referred to committee, with no further recorded action. It has not been enacted, and any claim that it has become law is not supported by this record.

Character versus company

The bill regulates the human being behind a likeness, not the fictional persona built on top of it. A studio that voices a virtual character using a real performer's captured voice would face a right holder's claim under this text; a studio that builds an entirely invented voice for its own character would not. That distinction separates two different things an operator can do: license a real person's identity for a synthetic product, or construct a persona with no real-world identity attached at all. This is an editorial reading of the definition's scope, since the bill does not itself discuss virtual influencers or persona operators as a category.

What to watch

• Has the bill, or an equivalent, been reintroduced in a later Congress since the 118th ended?
• Would a given virtual persona's voice or likeness fall inside the bill's definition of a digital replica, or outside it?
• Who would hold the digital replication right for a persona built on a real performer's captured performance?

A reader tracking this bill should treat introduction as the start of a legislative process, not its outcome, and should check Congress.gov directly before citing any later status.