A new bipartisan bill aims to protect actors, singers, and other performers from unauthorized artificial intelligence (AI) replicas.

Introduced Thursday, the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act would hold accountable individuals and companies who do not get consent for generative AI recreations, as well as the platforms that host and promote such content. Exemptions are included for news or sports broadcasts, documentaries or historical work, or satire and parody.

“Creators around the nation are calling on Congress to lay out clear policies regulating the use and impact of generative AI, and Congress must strike the right balance to defend individual rights, abide by the First Amendment, and foster AI innovation and creativity,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, a sponsor of the bill, said in a statement.

AI usage is one of the issues at the heart of the ongoing Hollywood actors strike, with actors fighting to prevent studios from using AI-generated images in the place of humans.

Actors Express Concerns About AI

The Screen Actors Guild's (SAG-AFTRA) chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, previously revealed that studios proposed "performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation."

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn added that the proposed legislation is a “good first step in protecting our creative community, preventing AI models from stealing someone’s [name, image, and likeness], and ensuring that those rights are given primary consideration under the law.”

SAG-AFTRA applauded the bill shortly after it was introduced, calling it a "historic federal intellectual property protection against the misappropriation of voice and likeness performance."

“The explosion in popularity and capability of generative artificial intelligence has flooded the internet with AI-created songs, videos, and voice recordings which exploit the voices and likenesses of our members without consent or compensation,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “For our members, their voice and likeness is their livelihood. They spend a lifetime improving their talent and building their value. It is outrageous to think someone can undermine that value with a few prompts and clicks on a keyboard.