Tennessee’s ELVIS Act Isn’t What You Think

ELVIS Act —Breaking down the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and the Image Security Act of 2024. Scott Hervey and James Kachmar from Weintraub Tobin discuss its impact on AI audio technology and how it protects musicians in the next installment of “The Briefing.” Watch this episode on the Weintraub YouTube channel here or listen to this podcast episode here. Show Notes: Scott: Tennessee's ELVIS Act isn't what you think. The acronym stands for Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and the Image Security Act of 2024. It's about protecting a musician's voice from AI clones. The bill was signed into law on March 21st, 2024, amid a growing concern by the music industry and musicians over AI soundalikes and deep fakes. I'm Scott Hervey from Weintraub Tobin, and I'm joined again by my partner, James Kachmar, to talk about this bill and its impact on the nascent AI audio space in this episode of "The Briefing" by Weintraub Tobin. James, welcome back to "The Briefing." James: Thanks, Scott. Scott: So, James, let's dive right into this bill and see what it does and doesn't do. So, this bill amends Tennessee's existing right of publicity statutes. Tennessee's existing law has previously provided that individuals, or in the case of a deceased individual, their estate, have a proprietary right in the use of that person's name, photograph, or likeness in any medium, in any manner. Now, one could probably have argued that likeness included voice, but this bill now makes it clear that a person's voice is among the personal property rights this statute now protects. James: Right, Scott. And in the bill, voice is defined as a sound in a medium that is readily identifiable and attributable to a particular individual, regardless of whether the sound contains the actual voice or a simulation of the voice of the individual. So essentially, a soundalike. Scott: That's right. So, let's talk about what this bill protects against. Tennessee's right of publicity statute now protects against the use of a person's name, photograph, voice, or likeness for the purpose of advertising products, merchandise, goods or services, or for the purposes of fundraising, solicitation of donations, purchases of products, merchandise, goods, or services. The bill also adds new language which provides that a person will be civilly liable If they publish, perform, distribute, transmit, or otherwise make available to the public an individual's voice or likeness with knowledge that the use of the voice or likeness was not authorized by the individual. James: So, Scott, I assume that this bill is going to put a target on AI voice companies for possible lawsuits? Scott: Yeah, it does. It absolutely does. The bill provides for civil liability for any person that distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available an algorithm, software tool, or other technology, service, or device, the primary purpose or function of which is the production of an individual's photograph, voice or likeness without authorization from the individual. James: Scott, do I understand the bill correctly that not only the individual performer will have a cause of action, but it also gives record labels a right to sue for violations? Scott: Yeah, absolutely. That's right. The bill adds a paragraph to the section that discusses remedies for violations of the section. This new paragraph states that well where a person has entered into a contract for an individual's exclusive personal services as a recording artist or an exclusive license to distribute sound recordings that capture an individual's audio performances, an action to enforce the rights set forth, and this part may be brought by the person or in...