Tennessee just passed a new bill titled the ELVIS Act, short for Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act of 2024. It adds a person’s voice to the scope of right-of-publicity protection in addition to a person’s name, photograph, and likeness. The ELVIS Act replaces the prior Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984.
The two main provisions that apply to AI music deepfakes, such as the one of Drake and the Weeknd, are subsections 2 and 3:
(2) A person is liable to a civil action if the person publishes, performs, distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to the public an individual’s voice or likeness, with knowledge that use of the voice or likeness was not authorized by the individual or, in the case of a minor, the minor’s parent or legal guardian, or in the case of a deceased individual, the executor or administrator, heirs, or devisees of such deceased individual.
(3) A person is liable to a civil action if the person distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available an algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service, or device, the primary purpose or function of such algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service, or device is the production of a particular identifiable individual’s photograph, voice, or likeness, with knowledge that distributing, transmitting, or otherwise making available the photograph, voice, or likeness was not authorized by the individual or, in the case of a minor, the minor’s parent or legal guardian, or in the case of a deceased individual, the executor or administrator, heirs, or devisees of such deceased individual.