By Douglas Mirell, Partner at Greenberg Glusker It is an extraordinarily rare day when Democrats and Republicans in the United State Senate can agree upon anything. But July 31, 2024 was just such a day. On that date, two Democrats (Chris Coons, Delaware and Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota) joined two Republicans (Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee and Thom Tillis, North Carolina) to introduce the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2024 (known colloquially as the “NO FAKES Act”)—a measure designed to protect the voice and visual likeness of all individuals from unauthorized AI-generated recreations. Beginning in October 2023, these four Senators and their staffs spent countless hours working with numerous stakeholders to craft legislation that seeks to prevent individuals and companies from producing unauthorized digital replicas, while simultaneously holding social media and other sites liable for hosting such replicas if those platforms fail to remove or disable that content in a timely manner. Nearly as unprecedented as the bipartisan co-authorship of this bill was the coalition of frequently adversarial organizations that endorsed the NO FAKES Act. Among these groups was not only the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), the Recording Industry Association of America, and the Recording Academy, but also the Motion Picture Association, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group. Other endorsers included Open AI, IBM, William Morris Endeavor, and Creative Artists Agency. Key to the formation of this coalition was a set of exclusions that seek to safeguard First Amendment interests by,...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - Thursday, 22 August, 2024