Copyright protects the things you make. Trademark protects the brand you build. But there’s a third kind of protection most creators never think about until they need it — the one that protects you: your name, your face, and now your voice.
It’s called the right of publicity, and in the AI era it has quietly become one of the most important rights you own. Because for the first time, a machine can generate a convincing version of your identity in seconds — and the law that decides whether that’s allowed is this one. Here’s what it actually protects, why you don’t need to be famous, and how to put it to work for you.
What the right of publicity actually is
The right of publicity is your legal right to control the commercial use of your identity — your name, your image, your likeness, and increasingly your voice. Put simply: nobody gets to use who you are to sell something without your permission.
Track the cases yourself
Every current AI-copyright ruling — and the ones still being fought — lives in our AI Copyright Ruling Tracker. Filter by your creator type to see, in plain language, how each case affects your rights.
The key word is commercial. If a company puts your face on a product, uses your name in an ad, or clones your voice to endorse a service, that’s the right of publicity’s territory. It treats your identity the way property law treats a piece of land — as something valuable that belongs to you, that you can protect, and that you can license out for money if you choose.
That last part is the piece most people miss. This isn’t only a shield you raise after something goes wrong. It’s an asset. The same right that lets you stop an unauthorized ad is the right that lets an athlete sign an endorsement deal or a creator license their likeness to a brand. You own it either way.
How it’s different from copyright, trademark, and privacy
People mix these up constantly, so let’s separate them cleanly:
- Copyright protects a specific creative work — a photo, a song, a video. If someone copies your painting, that’s copyright.
- Trademark protects a brand identifier — a business name or logo that tells customers who’s selling something. If someone copies your brand, that’s trademark.
- Privacy protects you from unwanted intrusion or exposure of private facts — it’s about being left alone.
- Right of publicity protects the commercial value of you — your identity as a person.
Here’s why the distinction matters in practice: a photographer might own the copyright to a photo of you, but you still hold the right of publicity in your own face. That’s why a company can’t grab a stock photo of you and build an ad campaign around it without clearing both rights. Two different owners, two different permissions.
You don’t have to be famous
The biggest myth about the right of publicity is that it’s only for celebrities. It isn’t. In most states, every person has this right, famous or not.
What changes with fame is the value, not the existence, of the right. A celebrity’s endorsement is worth millions, so the damages are larger. But an ordinary person whose face gets used in a local business’s advertising without consent has been wronged in exactly the same legal way. Some states, like New York, even build this directly into the statute — its law protects “any living person” whose name or likeness is used for advertising or trade without written consent.
For everyday creators, this matters more than ever. If an AI tool trains on your photos and spits out a synthetic “you” that a company then uses to promote a product, your right of publicity is the doctrine standing between you and that misuse — whether you have a thousand followers or a million.
The catch: it’s a state-by-state patchwork
Here’s the part that trips everyone up. There is no single federal right of publicity. It’s governed state by state, and the rules genuinely change when you cross a state line.
Roughly half of U.S. states protect it by statute — a written law on the books. The best-known examples are California Civil Code section 3344 and New York Civil Rights Law sections 50 and 51. Most of the remaining states protect it through common law — court decisions built up over decades — and a small number offer little clear protection at all.
What varies from state to state includes:
- What’s covered — name and image everywhere, but voice, signature, and distinctive style only in some places.
- Whether it survives death — some states end the right when you die; others let it pass to your heirs for decades.
- How strong the exceptions are for news, commentary, art, and parody.
The practical takeaway: which state’s law applies (usually where you live, and sometimes where the misuse happened) can decide whether you have a strong case or a weak one. It’s the single biggest reason a real dispute is worth a quick chat with a local attorney.
The AI era rewrote the rulebook
Until recently, most right-of-publicity laws were written for a pre-AI world — they talked about a “name, photograph, or likeness,” and it wasn’t always clear a synthetic version of you counted. Generative AI blew that ambiguity wide open, and states responded fast:
- Tennessee’s ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act) took effect July 1, 2024 — the first U.S. law to explicitly protect a person’s voice from unauthorized AI simulation, covering sounds that merely imitate you even when it isn’t your real recording.
- California’s AB 2602 and AB 1836 took effect January 1, 2025. AB 2602 makes vague contract clauses that sign away rights to an AI “digital replica” unenforceable without specific, informed consent. AB 1836 extends the state’s post-mortem right to cover digital replicas of deceased performers — protection that runs for 70 years after death.
- New York’s section 50-f similarly created a post-mortem right covering digital replicas of deceased performers.
At the federal level, the proposed NO FAKES Act (Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act) would create a nationwide right against unauthorized AI digital replicas of anyone’s voice and likeness. As of 2026 it has been introduced and reintroduced in Congress but has not yet become law — so for now, your protection still depends on your state.
Your identity is an asset — treat it like one
Because the right of publicity is a property-style right, you can do more than defend it. You can license it. When an athlete signs a name-image-likeness (NIL) deal, when a creator lets a brand use their face in a campaign, or when a voice actor licenses their voice for a specific project, they’re monetizing this exact right — on their own terms.
If you’re building any kind of public presence, that reframes the whole thing. Every time you grant permission, you’re licensing an asset, so the details matter: what use, for how long, in which media, and — critically now — whether AI-generated or “digital replica” versions are included. A permission granted for one photo shoot should not quietly become permission to generate an infinite synthetic you. Spell it out.
How to protect and use your right of publicity
You don’t need a law degree to be in a strong position. A few concrete moves:
- Read consent and release forms carefully. Before you sign anything letting a company photograph, record, or film you, look for language about “digital replicas,” “simulations,” “AI,” or “in perpetuity.” Narrow broad grants before you agree.
- Keep your permissions specific and in writing. When you license your likeness, define the use, the term, the media, and whether AI-generated versions are allowed. Written, limited grants protect you far better than a handshake.
- Document your identity assets. Keep records of how your name, face, and voice are used commercially — it establishes value if you ever need to prove damages.
- Know your home state’s rules. A quick look at your state’s statute (or a resource like Rothman’s Roadmap to the Right of Publicity) tells you whether voice is covered and whether the right survives death.
- Act quickly on misuse. If a business uses your identity commercially without consent, a documented cease-and-desist is often enough — and a local attorney can tell you how strong your state-specific claim is.
The right of publicity has spent most of its life as a quiet, celebrity-only corner of the law. AI dragged it into the center of every creator’s world. Your name, your face, and your voice are yours — an asset worth understanding, protecting, and, when you choose, putting to work.
This article is general information, not legal advice. The right of publicity varies significantly from state to state, and AI likeness laws are changing quickly — for a specific situation, check your state’s current statute or talk to a qualified attorney.
IPSurge helps creators and small businesses understand and protect their intellectual property — the ideas, names, and work that make them unique.
Sources & further reading:
- S.1367 — NO FAKES Act of 2025, 119th Congress (Congress.gov)
- First-of-Its-Kind AI Law Addresses Deep Fakes and Voice Clones (Holland & Knight — ELVIS Act)
- California’s New AI Laws Limit Uses of Digital Likeness — AB 2602 & AB 1836 (Fenwick)
- Rothman’s Roadmap to the Right of Publicity — state-by-state guide