Why Tennessee’s ELVIS Act Is the King of Artificial Intelligence Protections
Sarah Luppen Fowler and John D. Fowler | 27 Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L. 259 (2025)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving and advancing quickly. As AI advances, it presents novel legal issues for individuals and industries alike. For example, AI can now mimic the voices of famous musicians so well that it can be almost impossible for listeners to discern whether the vocals are from those musicians or generated with AI. Yet under the current legal framework, new works that mimic a famous artist’s voice can be created and distributed by anyone without the consent of the musician and without any legal repercussions.
Fortunately, lawmakers are proposing legislation to protect against the unauthorized use of another’s voice, image, or likeness in the face of AI. The first AI-focused state law, Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act (ELVIS Act), was passed on March 21, 2024, and went into effect on July 1, 2024. Multiple state and federal legislators have since proposed similar laws. This Article argues that the ELVIS Act is a gold standard for AI protections in general and for sound recording artists in particular, and that the protections that it provides should be incorporated into a federal right of publicity law. Indeed, many of the ELVIS Act’s key provisions are included in introduced federal legislation relating to AI protection of voice, image, and likeness. Federal legislation that includes many of the themes from the ELVIS Act would protect artists from having their voice unfairly appropriated by emergent AI technology and used in ways that they did not authorize. It would provide uniform protections and thereby prevent the current patchwork system of publicity laws from growing even further apart. With AI evolving faster than any other sector in American society, including the law, lawmakers can shore up the gaps now by quickly passing national legislation.