The King’s Legacy Lives on in Tennessee

Taking effect July 1, 2024, Tennessee’s aptly-named Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act (ELVIS Act) was the first law in the nation to protect musicians and other artists against AI.  While many states had already protected against the unauthorized commercial use of a person’s voice under their right of publicity statutes, the ELVIS Act was the first of its kind to specifically focus on AI-generated voice replicas. The new law allows a recording artist to sue over the commercial use of his or her voice and mandates that the unauthorized commercial use of a voice that is "readily identifiable and attributable to a particular individual" will constitute a misdemeanor and be subject to a private right of action for actual damages.  A separate provision of the ELVIS Act takes direct aim at AI platforms by allowing a lawsuit against any person who "makes available an algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service, or device" with the "primary purpose or function" of creating unauthorized recordings of a person's voice. This is important in current times because as AI has continued to proliferate over the last year, models or platforms that allow a user to create high-quality and realistic-sounding AI-generated audio have become increasingly accessible to the public.