Congress has not yet passed a federal digital-replica right

A federal bill, not yet a federal right

The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act, known as the NO FAKES Act, was introduced in the Senate on 31 July 2024 by Senators Coons, Blackburn, Klobuchar and Tillis. It did not pass before the 118th Congress ended, and the same sponsors reintroduced it in the 119th Congress as S. 1367 on 9 April 2025. As retrieved on 16 September 2026, the bill remains referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee; it has not been reported out of committee, passed either chamber, or signed into law. Nothing here should be read as describing enacted federal law.

What the bill text proposes

The bill would create a federal right of authorisation over a person's digital replica: a newly created, computer-generated, highly realistic representation of someone's voice or visual likeness in a recording or audiovisual work, where that person did not actually perform or their performance was materially altered. A living person could license the right for up to ten years at a time, or five years for a minor, ending at 18. After death, heirs or licensees would hold it for ten years, renewable in five-year blocks while the replica remains in active authorised use, up to a total of 70 years. Exceptions cover news, documentaries, commentary, criticism, satire, parody and fleeting uses, but explicitly not sexually explicit depictions. Online platforms would get a notice-and-takedown safe harbour, structured much like copyright law, for promptly removing flagged replicas.

Why a hologram producer would care

A federal digital-replica right, if enacted, would sit alongside state laws such as California's postmortem-likeness statute rather than replace them, giving performers and estates a nationwide baseline regardless of which state's law otherwise applies to a touring hologram-style show. The U.S. Copyright Office's own July 2024 report on AI and digital replicas recommended exactly this kind of federal legislation, framing the absence of a national right as a gap current law leaves open. But a recommendation and a bill referred to committee are not a rule anyone can rely on yet. Any production built around a digital replica of a real person, whether shown by foil projection, LED volume or headset compositing, currently depends on whatever state law, contract and existing publicity-right doctrine already require, not on this bill's terms.

• Has this bill, or any successor, been reported out of committee or scheduled for a floor vote since 16 September 2026?
• Which state's right-of-publicity law would actually govern this specific performance in the absence of a federal statute?
• Does the production's marketing imply a legal protection that only a still-pending federal bill would provide?

The distance between a bill's text and a law's effect is the whole story here: two Congresses, two bill numbers, and, as of retrieval, no floor vote in either.