A song called "Heart on My Sleeve" reached 10 million TikTok views by April 17, 20231. Its vocals copied Drake and the Weeknd's voices convincingly. A producer who goes by Ghostwriter977 built both voices with AI cloning software. Software alone stood inside that studio. Universal Music Group filed takedown notices that same day, 13 days after release1. Spotify and Apple Music pulled the track within hours. Three years later, three governments have answered the question that song raised. Who owns a voice once software can copy it this well? Tennessee and California passed laws first. Congress still debates a federal bill, 27 months behind them.
The Song That Started the Reckoning
Ghostwriter977 released "Heart on My Sleeve" on streaming services on April 4, 20231. Fans heard a Drake verse and a Weeknd hook over a familiar beat. A piece of AI software supplied every note credited to both men. The track reached 250,000 Spotify streams and 10 million TikTok views before anyone pulled it1.
Universal Music Group built its takedown around one detail. A producer tag from Metro Boomin sat uncleared inside the track. That tag was the only piece of the recording Universal actually owned1. The label used that single thread to erase a song that otherwise belonged entirely to Ghostwriter977.
Ghostwriter977 then submitted the track for Grammy consideration. Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. first called it eligible, since a human wrote it. He reversed himself in September2. "The vocals were not legally obtained. The vocals were not cleared by the label or the artists," Mason Jr. said2. He added that the Academy exists "to support and advocate and protect and represent human artists and human creators"2.
Drake had already called an earlier AI fake "the final straw" on Instagram, weeks before this song appeared1. The reckoning he wanted arrived first in statehouses, ahead of any courtroom.
Heart on My Sleeve draws 10 million TikTok views, 40 times its Spotify count
Plays and views by platform, as of April 17, 2023, before the takedown
Each bar is one platform's reach for the song: the magenta bar is TikTok's view count, and the blue bar is Spotify's stream count.
Source: TechCrunch [1]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| TikTok views | 10,000,000 |
| Spotify streams | 250,000 |
What the New State Laws Actually Cover
A digital replica is a computer-generated voice or image built to pass as a real person's. Tennessee defined one first. Governor Bill Lee signed the ELVIS Act on March 21, 2024. It added voice to the state's existing right of publicity6. The law reaches past the person who makes a fake voice. It also lets a performer sue a company whose main business is building the cloning tool itself6.
Tennessee's statute leaves that right open-ended, for the living and the dead alike6. California moved differently five months later. Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills on September 17, 20245. AB 2602 voids any studio contract that lets a digital replica stand in for a performer's own work. The only exception: the performer's union or lawyer signs off on specific, narrow language5. Its companion, AB 1836, covers performers who have already died. It requires a dead performer's estate to consent before a studio builds a new digital replica of them5.
Read together, the two California laws protect the contract and the estate. Tennessee protects the voice itself, independent of any agreement. That gap matters outside both states. A performer who lives in Ohio or Georgia holds a weaker claim than performers in either state. That changes only if a studio signs California contracts with its talent anyway.
Tennessee signs its voice law 27 months before the Senate votes on its own
State and federal digital-replica laws, 2024 to 2026
Each dot marks one law's signing or committee vote: gold dots are state laws already in force, and the gray dot is the federal bill still moving through Congress.
Sources: Proskauer Rose LLP [5]; Vanderbilt Law School [6]; Grammy.com [9]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.
The numbers behind this chart
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 21, 2024 | Tennessee signs the ELVIS Act |
| Sept. 17, 2024 | California signs AB 2602 and AB 1836 |
| June 18, 2026 | Senate Judiciary advances the replica bill |
Who Gets Paid When the Performer Is Dead
James Earl Jones signed over his rights to Lucasfilm in 2022, two years before he died. The deal let the Ukrainian firm Respeecher keep building Darth Vader's voice from his old recordings11. That consent came from the man himself. He gave it while he still could.
Anthony Bourdain left the decision to others. Director Morgan Neville built three AI-voiced lines into the 2021 documentary "Roadrunner." Those lines read words Bourdain had written but left unspoken3. "They were like, Tony would have been cool with that. I wasn't putting words into his mouth. I was just trying to make them come alive," Neville said3. Bourdain's widow, Ottavia Busia, read that defense and rejected it in public. "I certainly was NOT the one who said Tony would have been cool with that," she wrote3.
A similar fight followed Robin Williams, who died in 2014. AI accounts kept building fake clips of him for years afterward. His daughter Zelda Williams finally confronted the pattern in 2025. "To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough,' just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening," she wrote4.
Three cases carry three outcomes. The first actor signed a contract himself. One estate disputes a studio's account of consent. A family met only a platform, and the clips spread anyway.
The Case for Locking Down Your Likeness
SAG-AFTRA gathered more than 16,000 signatures in June 2026. The letter demanded Congress pass the federal bill, called the NO FAKES Act7. "Unchecked AI can ruin lives. Americans are demanding that the Federal Government take sensible action," said SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin7.
Blackburn and Coons make the same case as elected lawmakers, inside the Senate itself. "AI should empower innovation — not give scammers and online predators a free pass to exploit someone's voice and visual likeness without permission," said Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican10. Her co-sponsor framed the stakes the same way for anyone, famous or otherwise. "Everyone deserves the right to own and protect their voice and likeness from AI deepfakes, no matter if you're Taylor Swift or an 8th grader in Wilmington," said Senator Chris Coons10. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the bill by a unanimous voice vote on June 18, 2026, sending it to the full Senate9.
A coalition behind the bill spans labor and the companies labor often fights. The Recording Industry Association of America, YouTube, OpenAI and the Motion Picture Association all back the same text SAG-AFTRA does9. A performer's case for a replica right now carries support from the very platforms that would have to enforce it.
The Case Against a Federal Replica Right
Electronic Frontier Foundation reads the same bill as a tool built for over-removal. "Property rights inherently create an unequal playing ground where some people's rights are worth more than others," said Katharine Trendacosta, the group's director of policy and advocacy8.
Her sharper warning concerns what happens once a service receives a takedown claim under the bill's rules. The bill carries exceptions meant to protect news, satire and commentary. Trendacosta expects platforms to skip past them anyway. Faced with a legal claim and a looming deadline, a platform removes the clip first. It sorts out the parody later, if it sorts that out at all. A documentary might quote a dead public figure. Comedy shows stage political impersonations late at night. Fans cut tribute edits from old interviews. Each depends on an exception a platform's lawyers may skip reading closely before the clock runs out.
The fight, at bottom, pits two models of protection against each other. Astin's side wants a clear property right. A performer could enforce it the moment a clone appears, before any harm has time to spread. Trendacosta's side wants speech protected by default. A performer's remedy stays limited to cases where real deception occurred. Congress has to pick one model, or build a hybrid that satisfies only part of each side's case.
By the numbers
- 10,000,000: TikTok views "Heart on My Sleeve" drew before its removal, as of April 17, 20231.
- 13 days: the gap between the song's release and Universal Music Group's takedown notices1.
- March 21, 2024: Tennessee signed the ELVIS Act that day. It named voice a protected right, open-ended in the statute6.
- September 17, 2024: California signed AB 2602 and AB 1836 that day, covering contracts and dead performers separately5.
- 70 years: how long the federal NO FAKES Act would let an heir control a dead performer's digital replica9.
- 16,000-plus: signatures SAG-AFTRA gathered in June 2026 urging Congress to pass that bill7.
- 27 months: the span between Tennessee's signing and the Senate Judiciary Committee's vote advancing the federal version69.
- Four: named backers spanning labor and industry behind the Senate bill, from SAG-AFTRA to the Motion Picture Association to OpenAI9.
What to watch
The Senate floor calendar is the first thing to watch. A unanimous committee vote in June 2026 leaves the floor vote's timing open. The full chamber still has to reconcile the House and Senate versions910. Which states follow next matters just as much. Tennessee's open-ended model and California's contract-and-estate approach point in different directions. Your own state's choice decides whether a living voice or only a dead one gets covered. Platform takedown procedures will test the loudest warning in this fight. That test starts the day a studio or a fan page receives its first notice under whatever Congress finally passes.
Sources
- Amanda Silberling, "Uh oh, an AI-generated song by Drake and The Weeknd went viral," TechCrunch, April 17, 2023, https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/17/uh-oh-an-ai-generated-song-by-drake-and-the-weeknd-went-viral/
- Dylan Smith, "Recording Academy Clarifies Drake AI Song's Grammys Eligibility," Digital Music News, September 8, 2023, https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2023/09/08/recording-academy-harvey-mason-jr-heart-on-my-sleeve-comments/
- Christopher Brito, "New Anthony Bourdain documentary includes artificial intelligence version of chef's voice," CBS News, July 16, 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-bourdain-roadrunner-documentary-ai-voice/
- David Mouriquand, "Robin Williams' daughter Zelda Williams on AI deepfakes of her father: 'Horrible TikTok slop,'" Euronews, October 7, 2025, https://www.euronews.com/culture/2025/10/07/robin-williams-daughter-zelda-williams-on-ai-deepfakes-of-her-father-horrible-tiktok-slop
- Jeffrey D. Neuburger, "California Enacts Generative AI Law Addressing 'Digital Replicas' of Performers," Proskauer Rose LLP, September 19, 2024, https://www.proskauer.com/blog/california-enacts-generative-ai-law-addressing-digital-replicas-of-performers
- Sarah Luppen Fowler and John D. Fowler, "Why Tennessee's ELVIS Act Is the King of Artificial Intelligence Protections," Vanderbilt Law School, March 24, 2025, https://law.vanderbilt.edu/why-tennessees-elvis-act-is-the-king-of-artificial-intelligence-protections/
- Jeremy Fuster, "SAG-AFTRA's Anti-Deepfake Bill Endorsement Draws 16,000 Signatures," TheWrap, June 16, 2026, https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/public-policy-legal/sag-aftras-anti-deepfake-bill-endorsement-draws-16000-signatures/
- Thomas Claburn, "Just say no to NO FAKES Act, EFF argues," The Register, June 24, 2025, https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/24/say_no_to_no_fakes_act_eff/
- Claire Hoffman, "NO FAKES Act Passes Senate Judiciary Committee By Unanimous Voice Vote," Grammy.com, June 24, 2026, https://www.grammy.com/news/no-fakes-act-passes-senate-judiciary-committee
- Office of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, "Blackburn, Coons Bipartisan Bill to Protect Individuals and Creators from Deepfakes Passes Senate Judiciary Committee," June 18, 2026, https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2026/6/blackburn-coons-bipartisan-bill-to-protect-individuals-and-creators-from-deepfakes-passes-senate-judiciary-committee
- Lutzker & Lutzker, "AI and the Voices of Deceased Celebrities," August 22, 2024, https://www.lutzker.com/ip_bit_pieces/ai-and-the-voices-of-deceased-celebrities/