Tell Congress: Just Say No to NO FAKES

2026-06-09 · Source: Deeplinks · Field: Legal & Regulatory — Regulatory Affairs & Government Relations, Intellectual Property & Patents, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning · Depth: Intermediate, quick

Summary

The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act (NO FAKES), Senate Bill S.4591, is currently under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee. This proposed legislation aims to address misleading AI-generated replicas by establishing a broad property right over an individual's look, voice, and general style. Critics argue that NO FAKES would inadvertently censor First Amendment-protected expression, including parody and news, and fails to genuinely protect artists. Instead, it could facilitate artist exploitation by companies through contractual agreements. The bill also introduces a "supercharged" copyright takedown system, compelling platforms to implement filters for "digital replicas" rather than just exact matches, making censorship trivially easy. Despite recent amendments last year, the bill's provisions for redress against bad faith takedowns are deemed insufficient, ultimately targeting speech and innovation instead of the core privacy concerns associated with AI replicas.

Key takeaway

For Policy Makers evaluating legislation concerning AI-generated replicas, you should reject the NO FAKES Act. This bill, S.4591, risks establishing a broad property right that enables censorship of protected speech and facilitates artist exploitation through contracts, rather than safeguarding privacy. Instead, focus legislative efforts on directly addressing the real privacy harms posed by AI replicas to avoid unintended consequences that stifle innovation and free expression.

Key insights

NO FAKES bill creates broad property rights, risking censorship and artist exploitation over genuine privacy protection.

Principles

• Property rights can be signed away, unlike privacy rights.
• Broad digital replica filters enable easy censorship.
• Legislation should target privacy harms, not speech.

Topics

• NO FAKES Act
• AI Replicas
• Internet Censorship
• Intellectual Property
• Privacy Legislation
• First Amendment

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Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by Deeplinks.