The NO FAKES Act is close. Here's what it actually says
We read the reported text of S.4591 so you don't have to: tiered statutory damages, a federal takedown channel with staydown, and license rules the Likeness License schema already enforces. Every claim below is checked against the bill on congress.gov.
The federal digital-replica right has been “coming” for three Congresses. It is now genuinely close: the NO FAKES Act of 2026 (S.4591) was introduced May 20 by Senators Coons, Blackburn, Tillis, and Klobuchar, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously on June 18, and sits on the Senate calendar with a bipartisan House companion. Not law yet — state statutes like California’s AB 1836/2602 and Tennessee’s ELVIS Act remain the operative remedies today — but close enough that every deal we paper is built to survive its arrival.
What it gives a person whose likeness is taken
- Statutory damages with real teeth. The greater of actual damages or $5,000 per work for individuals, $25,000 per work for compliant services — and $5,000 per display or transmission, capped at $750,000 per work, for platforms that don’t comply. Plus injunctions, punitive damages for willful violations, and mandatory attorney’s fees for a prevailing plaintiff.
- A takedown channel with staydown. Platforms keep their safe harbor only if they remove noticed replicas “as soon as is technologically and practically feasible,” block re-uploads matching the digital fingerprint of the noticed replica, and terminate repeat violators. That fingerprint language is why every Semblance delivery already carries one.
- Your replica right can be licensed — never sold. The right is property, but it is not assignable during life. Licenses to living adults max out at ten years and require a signed writing with a “reasonably specific description” of intended uses.
What it means here
Three things. First, our license schema already enforces the ten-year cap and structurally forces specific consent — alignment is verified against the reported bill text, not vibes. Second, the notice-and-staydown regime would turn our license-keyed fingerprints into a federal enforcement hook, which is exactly how the enforcement desk is architected. Third, preemption would freeze the state patchwork while grandfathering existing state claims — so the desk files on state statutes today and inherits the federal channel the day it exists.
Sources: S.4591 text (congress.gov) · sponsor release. Findings verified in our enforcement research assessment; nothing here is legal advice.