Tennessee passes the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act, aiming to protect musicians and other artists from unauthorized use involving AI
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a bill into law on Thursday that aimed to protect artists including musicians from unauthorized use by artificial intelligence.
Context & Ripple Effects
Tennessee’s law is an early state-level response to the widening problem of AI systems reproducing a person’s identity without permission. It follows a broader bipartisan push against AI deepfakes, including proposed measures targeting non-consensual deepfakes and deceptive endorsements.
The measure matters because it puts musicians and other artists at the center of AI-likeness policy, a theme later reflected in platform tools intended to detect copied faces and voices and proposed federal remedies for creators.
First-order effects
- Musicians and other artists in Tennessee gain a state-law protection aimed at unauthorized AI use of their likeness, voice, and image.
- AI users and businesses operating around artist-replica content face a clearer legal constraint in Tennessee, making consent and rights clearance more consequential.
Second-order effects
- Platforms, labels, talent representatives, and AI developers may need more reliable processes for handling complaints and documenting authorization when Tennessee-based artists are involved.
- The law strengthens the policy case for creator-focused federal proposals such as the COPIED Act’s proposed tools for journalists, songwriters, and artists, while increasing pressure for technical detection and provenance controls.
Third-order effects
- If similar state measures proliferate, identity rights could become a fragmented compliance issue for generative-AI products rather than a question handled solely through platform policy.
- The likely long-term shift is toward a market in which commercially useful voice and likeness data require explicit permission, traceable licensing, and enforceable remedies—though the extent will depend on implementation and court interpretation.
The trend: AI governance is moving from broad concern about synthetic media toward enforceable rules and product controls for the commercial use of human likenesses.