New York’s Right to Publicity and Deepfakes Law Breaks New Ground

New York’s Right to Publicity and Deepfakes Law Breaks New Ground

Client Alert

On November 30, 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a path-breaking law addressing synthetic or digitally manipulated media. The law has two main components. First, it establishes a postmortem right of publicity to protect performers’ likenesses—including digitally manipulated likenesses—from unauthorized commercial exploitation for 40 years after death. Second, the law bans nonconsensual computer-generated pornography (often called deepfake pornography)—highly realistic false images created by artificial intelligence (AI). With this law, New York becomes the first state in the nation to explicitly extend a person’s right of publicity to computer-generated likenesses. This law has important implications to media and entertainment law and is part of growing legislative efforts around deepfakes. In sum, manipulated media is fast becoming a government-regulated field.

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