The NO FAKES Act (Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act) is proposed federal legislation that would create a federal right of action for individuals whose digital voice or visual likeness is replicated and distributed without consent. It is structured as a companion to the enacted TAKE IT DOWN Act, extending the federal deepfake regime beyond intimate imagery to the broader category of voice and likeness replicas. The bill has not been enacted; versions have been introduced in multiple Congresses.
Status and timeline
As of June 2026 the bill remained proposed and not enacted. Earlier versions had been introduced in multiple Congresses.
On June 18, 2026 the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the NO FAKES Act (S. 4591) by voice vote, advancing the Blackburn–Coons measure to the full Senate. The bill is backed by music, publishing, and other creative-arts groups but opposed by some technology and digital-rights organizations, which warned about its effect on online speech and platform liability (Source: insideaipolicy.com).
On May 20, 2026 the NO FAKES Act was reintroduced as a bipartisan, bicameral bill by Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Madeleine Dean (D-PA) in the House and Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Chris Coons (D-DE) in the Senate. As described in the sponsors' release, the bill would recognize a federal intellectual-property right in every American's voice and likeness and require online platforms to honor notice-and-takedown requests for unauthorized AI-generated digital replicas. The reintroduced text adds two elements over prior versions: a counter-notice process described by sponsors as protecting free-speech rights, and exemptions for libraries, archives, and research institutions. The reintroduction explicitly builds on the now-enacted TAKE IT DOWN Act, extending the federal deepfake regime from sexual NCII to voice and likeness replicas generally. (Source: salazar.house.gov)
Key provisions
Per the proposed text, the bill would establish:
- Individual right of action for the nonconsensual digital replica of a person's voice or likeness. According to the sponsors, this would be the first federal right of action specific to digital replicas, addressing a gap left by Thaler v. Perlmutter (AI authorship) and existing copyright law.
- Liability for platforms that knowingly distribute nonconsensual replicas.
- Safe harbor for platforms that promptly remove replicas after notice, a structure modeled on the DMCA but applied to synthetic media.
- Licensed replicas permitted — the subject of the bill is the nonconsensual subset, not licensed or authorized replicas.
- Counter-notice process, added in the May 2026 reintroduction, framed by sponsors as protecting free-speech rights.
- Exemptions for libraries, archives, and research institutions, also added in the May 2026 reintroduction.
Reactions
Industry support predates the 2026 reintroduction. YouTube announced explicit support on April 9, 2025 in a "YouTube supports the NO FAKES Act" blog post. The Creative Artists Agency (CAA) had earlier partnered with YouTube on technology for identifying and managing AI-generated content with likeness on YouTube (December 17, 2024). The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and SAG-AFTRA also support the bill.
The May 20, 2026 bipartisan reintroduction was endorsed by OpenAI, IBM, YouTube, TikTok, Disney, SAG-AFTRA, and the RIAA, a coalition spanning AI developers, platforms, a major studio, and the creative-labor and recording industries. (Source: salazar.house.gov)
Ahead of the June 18, 2026 markup, the Center for Democracy and Technology led a coalition of 10 data-rights groups urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to pause the bill, arguing that its digital-replica right would conflict with the First Amendment (Source: insideaipolicy.com).
Following the Senate Judiciary Committee's approval, Software & Information Industry Association president Chris Mohr urged a House Judiciary panel to amend the bill, offering the trade group's backing conditioned on changes, in testimony described in accounts published July 3, 2026 (Source: insideaipolicy.com).
Related
The bill sits within a broader set of federal and state measures addressing synthetic media and digital replicas:
- TAKE IT DOWN Act — enacted federal NCII and intimate deepfake law, on which the NO FAKES Act is modeled.
- State Deepfake Statutes (MN, WA, TX, CA) — state-level deepfake laws (MN, WA, TX, CA).
- California AI Transparency Act (SB 942) — California AI Transparency Act (watermarking).
Relationships
- related: TAKE IT DOWN Act, State Deepfake Statutes (MN, WA, TX, CA), California AI Transparency Act (SB 942), AI Voice Cloning, Synthetic Media / Deepfakes, ElevenLabs.
- depends-on: Ongoing Congressional legislative process.