NO FAKES Bill Adds a Counter-Notice Path for Deepfake Disputes
The U.S. Congress is advancing the NO FAKES Act of 2026 as a federal response to AI-generated digital replicas and deepfakes involving a person’s voice or visual likeness. As of 8 August 2026, the latest formal action on the Senate bill, S.4591, remains its 24 June report from the Senate Judiciary Committee and placement on Senate Calendar No. 446; it has not become law. The reported text creates a transferable federal property right in voice and visual likeness, with post-mortem protection that begins at 10 years and may be renewed in five-year increments where qualifying authorised public commercial use continues, subject to a 70-year maximum. Recent industry analysis has focused on the bill’s platform-liability architecture: after receiving a compliant notice, an online service would address allegedly unauthorised digital replicas, while the uploader could file a counter-notification asserting that the material is not a digital replica, is authorised, or falls within a statutory exclusion. If the service elects to restore the material, restoration would generally occur no sooner than 14 days after the counter-notice unless the claimant has filed suit.
The structure borrows from the DMCA without simply copying it. Counter-notices would carry formal requirements, including a physical signature that is notarised or witnessed, contact information, a good-faith statement and consent to federal court jurisdiction; false notices or counter-notices may also create substantial liability. The bill separately carves out qualifying nonprofit libraries, archives, nonprofit educational institutions and related personnel, while preserving room for news reporting, commentary, criticism, scholarship and satire. The policy trade-off is practical rather than abstract: deepfakes can spread fast enough to justify rapid removal tools, but a one-way notice system can also suppress lawful expression. For platforms, media companies and AI providers, the harder compliance work may therefore lie in evidence handling, notice review, counter-notice workflows and litigation escalation rather than in takedown alone.
