Senate Judiciary Committee to Vote on NO FAKES Act
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- The NO FAKES Act of 2026 ("Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe") would establish a new federal intellectual property right letting individuals authorize or block digital replicas of their voice and likeness, per a guest post by YouTube's Lyor Cohen and Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr.
- The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on whether to advance the bill on June 18, 2026.
- Lyor Cohen (YouTube's global head of music, formerly a top executive at Warner Music, Def Jam Records and Rush Management) and Harvey Mason Jr. (Recording Academy CEO) made the case for the bill at a Grammys on the Hill event in April.
- The authors point to "Heart on My Sleeve" — an April 2023 AI-generated track imitating Drake and the Weeknd that drew millions of streams without either artist being asked or credited — as the moment that exposed how existing law cannot address AI voice cloning.
- Copyright law covers "works" but explicitly not voice or likeness, the authors argue, meaning there is no federal standard and protection currently depends on an unequal patchwork of state right-of-publicity laws.
- YouTube has built likeness detection technology that automatically flags unauthorized use of an artist's image, but the authors warn artists protected on one platform remain vulnerable on others, making universal infrastructure across all upload-enabled platforms the bill's real test.
Why it matters: If enacted, the NO FAKES Act would create the first federal IP right over voice and likeness — a category copyright law explicitly does not cover — replacing the patchwork of state right-of-publicity laws that left artists like Drake and the Weeknd with no clear recourse when "Heart on My Sleeve" circulated in April 2023. The June 18 committee vote is the first formal legislative test of that framework.
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