Multiple sites are noting that the state of Tennessee has passed a law protecting a performer's right of publicity even in the era of generative AI. The right of publicity is the exclusive right to the individual's likeness whether appearance or sound or other distinguishing characteristics. It is called the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act or HB 2091 for short.
While Tennessee's preexisting law protected name, image, and likeness, it did not specifically address new, personalized generative AI cloning models and services that enable human impersonation and allow users to make unauthorized fake works in the image and voice of others. Artists and musicians at all levels are facing exploitation and the theft of their integrity, identity, and humanity. This threatens the future of Tennessee's creators, the jobs that they support across the state and country, and the bonds between fans and their favorite bands.
The ELVIS Act builds upon existing state rule protecting against the unauthorized use of someone's likeness by adding "voice" to the realm it protects.
- – Gov. Lee Signs ELVIS Act Into Law, Tennessee State Government
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed the ELVIS Act into law on Thursday in an effort to protect musicians from unauthorized artificial intelligence deep fakes and voice clones.
The bill, short for the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, updates the state's Protection of Personal Rights law (which protects an individual's "name, photograph, or likeness"), to include protections for artists' voices from AI misuse.
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Tennessee's preexisting law protected name, image, and likeness, but it did not specifically address new, personalized generative AI cloning models and services that enable human impersonation and allow users to make unauthorized fake works in the image and voice of others.
- – Tennessee becomes first US state with law protecting musicians from AI, The Economic Times
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State Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-27) and House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-44) presented the ELVIS Act to unanimous General Assembly passage with a 93-0 vote in the House and 30-0 in the Senate. Throughout the legislation's process, country guitarist Lindsay Ell, vocalist Natalie Grant, Evanescence co-founder David Hodges, Contemporary Christian artist Matt Maher, singer Chrissy Metz, songwriter Jamie Moore, RIAA SVP of Public Policy Jessie Richard, and Christian artist Michael W. Smith helped lobby for support, speaking to the potential harms of unchecked AI deep fakes and voice clones.
- – ELVIS Act Signed Into Law, First AI Legislation in the U.S., Digital Music News
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Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law alongside musicians and other state representatives on the stage of the Lower Broadway honky-tonk Robert's Western World.
The ELVIS Act, short for the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act - HB 2091, advocates on behalf of the state's music creators by enacting voice protections. The bill arrives in the midst of AI advances where deepfakes and unauthorized uses of artists' voices and likenesses.
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Tennessee governor Bill Lee signed the ELVIS Act into law Thursday (Mar. 21), legislation designed to further protect the state's artists from artificial intelligence deep fakes. The bill, more formally named the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act of 2024, replaces the state's old right of publicity law, which only included explicit protections for one's "name, photograph, or likeness," expanding protections to include voice- and AI-specific concerns for the first time.
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"We employ more people in Tennessee in the music industry than any other state," Lee told reporters shortly after signing the bill into law. "Artists have intellectual property. They have gifts. They have a uniqueness that is theirs and theirs alone, certainly not artificial intelligence."
The Volunteer State is just one of three states where name, photographs and likeness are considered a property right rather than a right of publicity. According to the newly signed statute — dubbed the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act or "ELVIS Act" — vocal likeness will now be added to that list.
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The law includes an exemption for news, public affairs, or sports broadcasts or accounts, to the extent that it is protected by the First Amendment. There also is a fair use exemption for the purposes of comment, criticism, scholarship, satire or parody.
Tennessee is the first state to pass a law designed to curb the use of AI deepfakes.
Ostensibly this right is already protected in many states, even against AI cloning and imitation, but now this law addresses the problem explicitly, at least in Tennessee.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by BsAtHome on Monday March 25 2024, @10:15AM (3 children)
So, I guess, (un)serious commentary and satire are now also banned? Must not upset anybody by imitation.
And then, imitation was once seen as flattering at the highest level.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2024, @02:22PM
They can pass all the laws they want. Enforcing them and keeping them from being struck down will be more difficult.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Monday March 25 2024, @05:07PM
Might as well get it in beforehand, that they should have added on "Publicity" at the beginning of the acronym.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Monday March 25 2024, @05:17PM
Ummm why? Forging celebrity identities didn't just get invented, that's why we have copyright and trademark laws... yet we also have Weird Al.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Touché) by Kell on Monday March 25 2024, @10:37AM (1 child)
I know because he said so in a Tik Tok, and he wouldn't lie to me - just like with the cryptostocks he swears by!
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ox0000 on Monday March 25 2024, @02:23PM
I bet you that Mr. Carlin swore by those cryptostocks, I bet he said "Which stupid kind of fucking idiot do you have to be to fall for these moronic scams?"