Law / United States / 
Montana
Digital Likeness and Voice Rights Act (HB 513, 2025), unauthorized AI depiction liability
2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685 (HB 513); Mont. Code Ann. tit. 30, ch. 14
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What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.
In force 9 months, effective 1 January 2026.
An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 8 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not distribute, transmit, or otherwise make available an algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service, or device with actual and specific knowledge that its primary purpose is to produce an unauthorized digital voice or visual depiction of a particular, identified individual for commercial use
- Do not intentionally publish, perform, distribute, transmit, or make available a digital voice or visual depiction of an individual for commercial use, knowing it is not authorized by the individual or the holder of the individual's property rights
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureNo
Private right of actionYes
What it reaches
How the hook was established
express
What makes it apply
Data subject residence
Obligation class
Prohibition
What it makes you log
Logging duty
The Act creates a property right in name, voice, and visual likeness and a civil cause of action against a person who distributes a tool built to produce an unauthorized digital depiction or who publishes such a depiction knowing it is unauthorized. It imposes no duty on anyone to log, record, or otherwise document a depiction, a distribution, or the belief that a use was authorized; the objectively-reasonable-belief provision is a defense to liability, not a record-keeping duty.
- Kind
- None
- As of
- 21 September 2026
Who checks it
Audit expectation
none
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
The Digital Likeness and Voice Rights Act gives a Montana resident, or a person domiciled in Montana at death, a property right in their own name, voice, and visual likeness, freely transferable and descendible, that does not expire on death and continues for 20 years afterward in the rights holder's executors, heirs, transferees, or devisees.
A person is liable for actual damages and any profits from the unauthorized use if, without the consent of the individual or the rights holder, the person distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available an algorithm, software, tool, or other technology whose primary purpose, known to that person, is to produce an unauthorized digital voice or visual depiction of a particular, identified individual for commercial use, or if the person intentionally publishes or distributes such a depiction for commercial use knowing it is unauthorized.
A digital voice or visual depiction is one newly created or altered using digital technology so that it is nearly indistinguishable from the individual's actual voice or likeness and a reasonable person would believe it genuine. A person who held an objectively reasonable belief that the material did not qualify as an unauthorized depiction is not liable for damages.
The action may be brought by the individual or by an assignee, transferee, or exclusive licensee of the rights, within 4 years of discovery of the violation, and does not apply to a provider of broadband internet access service.
Exemptions, to the extent the use is protected by the First Amendment and the Montana Constitution's free expression clause, cover news-gathering, public affairs and sports reporting, comment, criticism, scholarship, satire and parody, and an individual's authentic self-representation in an audiovisual work. The act took effect January 1, 2026 under its own effective-date clause. It directs its own codification as part of Title 30, chapter 14.
When LexLint raises it
generates_contentprocesses_voice
Read the law
official enrolled act text, Montana Legislature
Every line above is drawn from the primary source linked here, read on the date shown. This is a research summary, not legal advice.