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Law / United States / New York

Right of publicity, digital replica of a deceased performer

N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 50-f

In force since .

An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.

How the hook was established
express
What makes it apply
Place of effect, Data subject residence
Obligation class
Prohibition
Audit expectation
none
Setting the rule reaches
General

What it requires

  • Do not use a deceased performer's digital replica in an audiovisual work, sound recording, or live musical performance without authorization from the applicable right holder.

These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.

In the frameworks

NIST AI RMF
  • MAP 3.3Targeted application scope is specified and documented based on the system’s capability, established context, and AI system categorization.
NIST AI 600-1
MIT mitigations Draft
  • 1.5Safety Decision Frameworks
  • 3.3Access Management
FINOS AIGF
ETSI EN 304 223
  • 5.1.2-1Business need and security risks written down and assessed before deciding to build an AI system.
  • 5.1.4-5End-users told which uses of the system are prohibited.

Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law

Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.

If you get it wrong

Criminal exposureNo

Private right of actionYes

Statutory damages

Greater of $2,000 or the injured party's compensatory damages, plus disgorgement of the defendant's profits attributable to the unauthorized use; punitive damages may also be awarded.

As of
Currency
USD
Per person minimum
2,000

Who enforces it

Enforcement body

A successor in interest or licensee of the deceased personality's rights, who may sue only after registering a claim of the rights with the secretary of state.

Settledness

As of
Open questions
  • Does "readily identifiable as the voice or visual likeness of an individual" in section 50-f(1)(c) require recognition by an ordinary listener or viewer, or by the deceased performer's audience?
  • Does a service that lets users generate a deceased performer's voice fall within the service exemption in section 50-f(10), or is it a person who "uses" the digital replica under section 50-f(2)(b)?
  • Does a change to the words of a recorded performance that leaves its delivery intact "materially" alter its "fundamental character" under section 50-f(1)(c)(ii)?

What it makes you log

Logging duty

The digital-replica liability standard in subdivisions 2(b) and (c) creates no duty to create, keep, or produce a log or record of a digital replica's creation or use, or of the right holder's authorization. Subdivision 7 separately requires a successor in interest or licensee to register a claim of rights with the secretary of state before bringing any action under this section, including one over a digital replica, and that registered claim becomes a public record; that registration duty runs to the person asserting the right, not to the person who created or used the replica, and predates the digital-replica provisions.

Kind
None
As of

What this law does

Drafted with AI

Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page. How this site is made

Research summary

Legal information, not legal advice. This is LexLint's own research summary of a public legal source, and it creates no attorney-client relationship. For decisions that matter, consult qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. About LexLint

A person who uses a deceased performer's digital replica, a newly created, computer-generated, highly realistic electronic representation of their voice or visual likeness, in an audiovisual work, sound recording, or live musical performance, knowing the use was unauthorized by the applicable right holder, is liable for the greater of $2,000 or the injured party's compensatory damages, plus disgorgement of the defendant's profits and, in the court's discretion, punitive damages.

The section exempts parody, satire, commentary, documentaries and similar works, and news, public affairs and political-campaign uses. The digital replica provisions were first enacted effective and were further revised, per the consolidated law page's own revision history, effective .

When LexLint raises it

When your app profile says your app generates audio with AI, generates images with AI or generates video with AI.

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Page updated .