There’s something slightly unsettling about seeing a dead actor in a new movie. The face looks good. The voice is close enough to hear. But that person hasn’t been seen in years. In a room full of servers, an algorithm filled in the blanks. It’s no longer science fiction. The choice is in the name of business, and it’s becoming one of the most complicated legal cases Hollywood has seen in a long time.
The issue became much more important during the SAG-AFTRA strike of 2023, when actors took to the picket lines to voice a concern that had seemed unimportant before: studios could scan actors’ likenesses and use those scans forever, without their permission or payment. Negotiators said that studios were looking into ways to digitally copy background actors so that they would need fewer real ones in the future. Even though studios pushed back against that frame, there was real enough tension that work had to stop for months.
That fight didn’t really end anything; it just led to a temporary agreement. The more important question of who owns a person’s digital likeness after they die was still mostly unanswered.
The proposed NO FAKES Act is based on this question. This bill has been introduced, held up, and then reintroduced in both the Senate and the House since 2023. The bill would give people in the United States a federal right of publicity, which is something the country has never had before. At the moment, protections are very different from one state to the next. Some states give strong rights to people who have died. Some give you almost nothing. That patchwork makes both risks and opportunities for a studio working in more than one state or a streaming platform working all over the world.
A digital replica, according to the proposed law, is a very accurate computer-made copy of a person’s voice or likeness, even in works where that person never actually performed. Most importantly, the bill gives rights to people who have died. After someone dies, their heirs or designated representatives would have control over a likeness for ten years. This could be extended for up to seventy years if the likeness is still being used. That detail has made some people look twice. To give you an idea, 70 years is the same amount of time that most works are protected by copyright laws.
There are a lot of groups that support the bill. For example, SAG-AFTRA and OpenAI are on the same side of an issue, which doesn’t happen very often. Disney, Universal Music Group, Google, Amazon, and Adobe have all said they support it. When big tech companies and entertainment companies agree on a federal law, you should stop and think about why. A cynical view is that a clear licensing framework that formalizes, rather than limits, the commercial use of digital copies is good for everyone.
There has been more care from digital rights groups. They are worried that letting estates and corporations decide for decades whether to allow or not allow the use of a likeness could stop people from freely expressing themselves creatively and in the news. For example, a documentary about a controversial public figure could be sued if the person’s heirs don’t like how they are portrayed. There are some exceptions in the bill for news, documentary, and public interest uses, but critics say those aren’t as broad as they seem.
During Senate hearings, musician FKA Twigs gave some of the most realistic testimony. She talked about why she chose to make a legal digital version of herself and how she found online songs made by AI that were wrongly attributed to her. The two events are too close to be comfortable next to each other. One is a helper. The other one is a breach. As things stand, the law has a hard time telling them apart clearly.
As this plays out, it seems like the entertainment industry is trying to put legal rules around something that is still moving. The tools that were meant to control the technology that can be used to make convincing digital copies of dead actors have caught up with it. No matter if the NO FAKES Act becomes law as it is now or after more changes, the main issue will not wait. Studios are already choosing which dead actors to bring back to life. Who really gets to say “yes” and who benefits is still an open question.
