Digital replica and right of publicity laws in all 50 states: the 2026 tracker

Protection tells you where the right comes from. A statute gives you a written rule with defined terms and remedies. "Courts" means the right exists only because judges have recognized a claim for misappropriating someone's name or likeness, which usually protects the living and says little about the dead. "No clear right" means no statute exists and the state's courts have neither accepted nor rejected the claim.

After death is the period during which your heirs, or whoever you left the right to, can stop others using your name, voice or likeness. Read the conditions carefully. California, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Texas protect a dead person only if their identity had commercial value, which in practice means people who were known enough for their name or image to sell something. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia protect people whether or not they were famous.

Heirs must register? matters more than most families realize. In seven states, the people who inherit the right have to file a claim with the Secretary of State, and in most of them an heir who has not registered cannot collect damages for anything that happened before the filing. Nevada is the strictest: an heir who does not register within six months of learning about an unauthorized use loses the right altogether.

Damages shows what a court can award. A statutory amount, such as Texas's $2,500 or Hawaii's $10,000, matters because it lets a family win something even when the harm is hard to put a price on, which is the usual situation with a fake voice of someone who has died.

Indiana and Oklahoma protect a person's identity for 100 years after death, the longest terms in the country, although Indiana's applies to uses inside Indiana and both require that the identity had commercial value. Washington gives 75 years to anyone whose identity had commercial value and 10 years to everyone else. California, Hawaii, South Dakota and Utah sit at 70 years. Utah reached that number only in 2026, when SB 256 created a 70-year "replication right" and made it retroactive for people who had already died. Ohio protects a commercially valuable persona for 60 years, and Alabama gives 55 years to anyone who lived or died in the state or whose estate was probated there.

Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada and Texas give 50 years, each with its own conditions. Illinois covers only people who died after January 1, 1999, and its right ends early if the person left no written transfer and no living spouse, parent, child or grandchild. Louisiana ends the right after three consecutive years of non-use, and Kentucky protects only public figures. Florida and New York protect a person for 40 years, Pennsylvania for 30, and Montana and Virginia for 20. Tennessee is the outlier: 10 years, and then for as long as the estate keeps using the name, voice or likeness commercially, ending only after two years of non-use. That is why Elvis Presley's identity is still protected almost half a century after his death, as our ELVIS Act guide explains.

Four states recognize that the right outlives the person without setting any end date. Georgia's Supreme Court held in 1982, in a case over plastic busts of Martin Luther King Jr., that the right survives death and can be inherited. South Carolina's Supreme Court reached the same result in 2009, Nebraska's statute lets the claim survive, and an Arizona appeals court held in 2014 that the right is descendible. In Wisconsin and Rhode Island the statutes protect only the living, and North Dakota recognizes no right at all. In the other 22 states and the District of Columbia, no statute sets a term after death and the state's courts have not settled whether the right survives, which leaves families to argue it from scratch.

Ten states have passed civil laws since 2024 that give a person, or their estate, a claim over an AI copy of their voice or likeness. A separate group has made deceptive deepfakes a crime, and California, Illinois and New York have also rewritten the contracts performers sign. The three groups do different jobs, and the difference decides what you can actually do about a fake.

Laws that give you or your estate a claim over an AI copy

Tennessee went first. The ELVIS Act, in force since July 1, 2024, added voice, including a simulation of a voice, to the state's publicity law, made it a civil wrong to publish or distribute an unauthorized voice or likeness, and reached the companies that distribute a tool whose primary purpose is producing a particular person's voice or likeness without permission. A public post can be enough; the use does not have to make money.

California has built the deepest set of rules. AB 1836 (2024) makes anyone who puts a digital replica of a deceased personality's voice or likeness (anyone whose identity had commercial value) into a film, show or sound recording without the estate's consent liable for at least $10,000. AB 2602 (2024) voids contract clauses that let a replica replace a performer's work without a reasonably specific description of the uses, unless the performer was represented by a lawyer or a union. SB 683 (2025) lets a court order a fake taken down within two business days. Two 2026 laws take effect on January 1, 2027: SB 1111 brings digital replicas into the living-person right of publicity and makes impersonating someone with a replica a crime, and SB 1050 requires ads with an AI-generated synthetic performer to say so.

Illinois amended its Right of Publicity Act in 2024 to cover unauthorized digital replicas, including those of people who have died, and made anyone who knowingly helps a violation liable too. New York passed three laws in two years: a 2024 rule voiding vague replica clauses in contracts, a 2025 law making it unlawful to knowingly use a dead performer's digital replica in a film, recording or live show without the consent of whoever holds the rights, and a 2025 law that since June 9, 2026 has required advertisers to disclose synthetic performers. Montana created a property right in a person's name, voice and visual likeness that took effect on January 1, 2026, and, like Tennessee, it reaches the tools built to clone a specific person for commercial use.

Utah went furthest in 2026. SB 256 treats any AI simulation of a person's identity as that person's identity, creates a 70-year replication right, applies it retroactively, and makes it unlawful to sell a tool whose intended primary purpose is cloning people without consent. Arkansas updated its publicity statute in 2025 so that AI-generated images and simulated voices count as a person's likeness and voice. Washington added "forged digital likeness" to its Personality Rights Act in 2026, with damages for the emotional harm a fake causes even when nobody profits. Hawaii passed Act 247 in July 2026, covering realistic AI imitations of a person's voice or likeness used in advertising or to cause harm, and it lets the estate sue for up to 10 years after death. Arizona gave candidates and citizens a claim over digital impersonations in 2024, although its main remedy is a court declaration that the content is fake.

Laws that make a deceptive deepfake a crime

New Hampshire made it a felony in 2024 to create or distribute a deepfake of an identifiable person to embarrass, harass, defame or extort them, and the person can sue for damages. New Jersey's 2025 law makes it a crime to use deceptive audio or video of a real person to commit or further another crime, and lets victims sue for at least $1,000 per violation. Pennsylvania's 2025 digital forgery law criminalizes creating and distributing a forged digital likeness to defraud or injure someone. Washington and Arizona added criminal provisions of their own in 2025.

These laws matter if a scammer clones your mother's voice to empty her bank account. They do much less for a family that wants to stop a tribute video, a chatbot or an ad that uses a dead parent's face without permission, because those are not crimes. For that you need a right of publicity, and in 25 states and DC there is no statute to give you one. Most states also have separate laws on sexual deepfakes and election deepfakes, which this tracker does not cover; our deepfake laws by country guide covers the wider picture.

Virginia's 2026 change

Virginia added "voice" and "likeness" to its publicity statute on July 1, 2026, so a voice clone used in an ad or for trade is now covered. The final law is narrower than the bill as introduced: the drafts contained a digital replica rule, platform takedowns and a 100-year term after death, and none of that survived. Virginia's right still ends 20 years after death.

Most state legislatures have finished their 2026 sessions, so the bills that failed this year are dead and will have to be filed again in January 2027. California's SB 1142 and SB 1146 missed the session's deadline, and Georgia's HB 566 and HB 1399, South Carolina's H. 3404 and Vermont's H.388 died when their sessions ended. A handful of full-time legislatures are still sitting, and five states have live bills on these topics:

• Massachusetts: H.4832, on contracts for digital replicas, has been ordered to a third reading in the House.

• Michigan: HB 6150, the Identity, Consent, Ownership, and Name Rights Act, is in committee.

• New Jersey: A3065 would create a civil right of action for misuse of a person's name, image, likeness or voice, and A5088, with its Senate companion S4702, is the AI Likeness Protection Act.

• New York: S.8721 would add a new section 50-h to the Civil Rights Law, and A.8611 would amend the dead-performer rules in section 50-f.

• Ohio: SB 163 passed the Senate on May 20, 2026 and is in a House committee, alongside HB 185.

The bill that would change every row of this table is federal. The NO FAKES Act (S.4591) would give every person in the country a property right in their voice and visual likeness, lasting 10 years after death and renewable up to 70. It cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2026, but Senator Ted Cruz blocked a fast-track vote on September 30, and it dies on January 3, 2027 if Congress does not pass it. Our NO FAKES Act status tracker follows every step.

The bill would preempt future state laws on digital replicas, but it would preserve claims under state statutes that already existed on January 2, 2025. That date sorts this table into two groups. Tennessee's ELVIS Act, California's 2024 laws, Illinois's 2024 amendments and New York's 2024 contract rule were all in place before it and would survive. Montana's 2025 law, Utah's 2025 and 2026 amendments, Arkansas's 2025 update, Washington's 2026 changes, Hawaii's Act 247, New York's 2025 laws and California's 2026 laws all came after it.

How far a court would let the federal rule displace those later laws is genuinely unsettled, because commentators have called the preemption clause ambiguous. A state that has not yet passed a digital replica law would largely lose the ability to pass one if the bill becomes law as drafted. In practice, the map in this tracker could be close to its final shape the moment the President signs it.

If you live in one of the 22 states or DC where the question is open, you are not without options while you are alive. Courts in almost all of these states recognize some claim for misappropriating a living person's name or likeness, and that claim can stop an ad or a product that uses your face or voice without permission; Alaska and Wyoming are the exceptions, along with North Dakota. The gap opens at death. Without a statute or a ruling that the right survives, your family may have nothing to enforce.

Federal judges have filled the gap in some places. A federal court in Minnesota let Prince's estate pursue a claim over his name and likeness in 2017, federal courts applying Michigan law enforced the right as property after the designer Charles Eames's estate assigned it, and federal courts applying New Jersey law have treated it as property that passes to heirs. Those rulings help, but a state court can still decide differently, and none of them sets a term. Our guide to who controls your identity after you die goes through what an estate can and cannot do in these states.

The families who have won fights over a dead person's voice or likeness almost always had something in writing. When Drake released a track in April 2024 that used an AI imitation of Tupac Shakur's voice, the Shakur estate's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter citing California's right of publicity, and the track came down within days. Robin Williams went further before his death: his estate plan restricted the use of his name, image and likeness for 25 years after he died. James Earl Jones signed off on recreating his Darth Vader voice from archival recordings in 2022, two years before his death, so the consent came from him rather than from a negotiation after his funeral.

You do not need to be famous to do the same. Say in your will or trust who holds the rights to your name, voice and likeness, and what they may and may not do with them; our guide to consent for an AI of me in my will has sample language to take to your lawyer. If you live in one of the seven registration states, make sure your executor knows to file with the Secretary of State promptly. Keep a dated recording of your real voice, because it is the easiest way for your family to prove a voice is really you when a fake appears, and read our guide to protecting your voice from AI cloning while you are alive.

The strongest consent any of these laws recognizes is your own, given while you are alive. That is the version every statute in this table is built to allow. On Afterlife.ai™ you build your Persona yourself, from your own memories and in your own voice, and with Executor Lock™ you name the people who decide what happens to it. At the lock your Persona's personality is sealed, so nobody, family included, can turn you into someone you were not. Idy built Executor Lock™ before it built anything else, and holds 78 patents pending on the governance behind it, with international protection sought under the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

We researched all 50 states and the District of Columbia in October 2026, reading each statute on the state's official code or legislature website first, then on Justia and similar statute services, then on the Right of Publicity Roadmap maintained by Professor Jennifer Rothman. Every fact in the table had to come with a verbatim quote and the address of the page it came from. We then re-fetched every cited page and machine-checked all 786 quotes against it. Where a legislature blocks automated access, we checked the quote against an archived copy, a browser view or the Roadmap's summary of the same statute.

When sources disagreed, the enacted text won. That is how we caught the Montana damages figure: several sites report $50,000 per violation, but that amount and a $5,000 one appear only in an amended draft of HB 513, and the law as signed, now Mont. Code Ann. § 30-14-1714, awards actual damages plus profits. Bill status comes from each legislature's own records as of October 28, 2026. Laws change quickly in this area, and we review this page every month while the NO FAKES Act is pending. If you spot an error, contact us and we will correct it.

This page explains the law in general terms and is not legal advice. For your own estate plan, talk to a lawyer in your state. If you want to understand what happens to the rest of your digital life, see who owns your AI twin after you die, who owns your voice clone, what happens to your ChatGPT memories when you die, the EU AI Act's Article 50 for Europe, and our essay on being remembered wrong. Businesses can see our services, and anyone asking whether an AI of a parent is allowed should start with is it legal to make an AI of a dead person.

Right of Publicity Roadmap: state pages Montana Code Annotated § 30-14-1714 Montana HB 513 as signed (2025) California Legislature: SB 1111 status California Legislature: SB 1050 status Utah Code Title 45, Chapter 3 Washington RCW 63.60, Personality Rights Alabama Code § 6-5-771 Nevada Revised Statutes chapter 597 Ohio Revised Code chapter 2741