Committee approves 'No Fakes Act' to extend protections for voice and likeness from AI-generated replicas

House Bill 566, introduced as the Nurture Originals Foster Art and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act, advanced from committee after testimony from industry groups and a voice vote on March 3.

Representative Hong, the bill’s author, told the State Planning and Community Affairs Committee the measure would protect artists and other individuals from unauthorized computer-generated recreations of voice and visual likeness, including those produced by generative artificial intelligence, and would create a registry administered by the Secretary of State for postmortem rights.

The bill’s stated purpose is to bar nonconsensual digital replicas and to provide civil remedies for violations. “This bill will address those nonconsensual digital replications in these kinds of audiovisual works, images, or sound recordings,” Representative Hong said during the hearing. The substitute form of the bill includes language designed to limit liability for online platforms unless the platform has actual knowledge of an unauthorized replica and fails to remove it.

Witnesses presented contrasting views. Tom Mann, state policy manager for the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), urged the committee not to advance the measure, arguing the bill could inappropriately extend new publicity rights and would create long postmortem protections without an effective centralized registry. “Legislation should hold the bad actors accountable when they knowingly and intentionally exploit a person's likeness without permission, not the intermediaries,” Mann said.

Industry groups representing recording artists supported the bill. Jesse Richards, senior vice president for public policy at the Recording Industry Association of America, said the measure strikes a balance by protecting artists while not imposing strict liability on platforms that lack actual knowledge. “At the heart of this bill is a person's autonomy, their ability to control how their own voice and likeness are used,” Richards said.

Todd Dupler, chief advocacy and public policy officer for the Recording Academy (best known for the Grammy Awards), and Mala Sharma, president of Georgia Music Partners, also testified in support, describing the economic and reputational harms unauthorized replicas can cause and praising the substitute’s registry and actual-knowledge standard for platform liability.

Committee members asked practical and legal questions about jurisdiction, enforcement, minors, exemptions for parody and satire, and the postmortem duration. Representative Hong and witnesses said the bill would rely on Georgia’s existing civil-jurisdiction rules for litigation and that the substitute contains exclusions intended to cover First Amendment-protected uses such as parody, satire and commentary.

Discussion included the postmortem duration in the substitute: Representative Hong noted the bill extends postmortem rights to 70 years; opponents urged reconsideration of that length, and supporters said they were open to discussion but viewed longer postmortem rights as important for estates and heirs.

Committee members also questioned how damages and court venues would work. The bill text discussed civil liability and remedies and included registration and renewal mechanics for postmortem rights with the Secretary of State; the substitute states a civil remedy and includes a registration mechanism, but exact administrative costs and procedures were not finalized in the hearing.

Tom Mann and other opponents urged amendments or caution, saying other states have set different durations and that imposing liability without careful intermediary protections could chill platforms. Supporters said the substitute addresses intermediary liability by requiring actual knowledge before platform liability attaches and that a Secretary of State registry would help locate rights holders for licensing requests.

After roughly two hours of testimony and questioning, the committee voted by voice to advance the bill. The transcript records the motion, a second and the chair’s announcement “the ayes have it.” No roll-call vote was recorded in the transcript.

Representative Hong and multiple music-industry witnesses said the legislation is aimed at protecting creators’ control over their voice and likeness in an era of increasingly capable generative AI; opponents raised concerns about scope, jurisdiction and intermediary liability that lawmakers may address in further drafting.

The committee-approved substitute will proceed to additional legislative steps, where the bill’s duration of postmortem rights, registry mechanics and liability language may be amended further.