Can Anyone Use a Dead Person's Voice or Likeness? What the Law Says So Far

Dated October 7, 2026. This area of law is changing quickly, and we’ll update this guide. AI can now clone a voice from a short recording or animate a photograph. People ask whether that’s legal when the person has died, whether the use is a family tribute, a film, an advertisement, or a scam. The honest answer is “it depends, and it isn’t fully settled.” Here’s what we can say.

Is there a federal law?

Not yet. The proposed federal NO FAKES Act (S.1367), introduced in April 2025, would address unauthorized digital replicas, but one 2026 legal guide reports that, as of May 2026, it had not passed either chamber. A separate federal law, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, has passed, but it addresses a different problem, nonconsensual intimate imagery. Check the current status of both before relying on this summary.

What does state law say?

Today the main legal tool is the postmortem right of publicity: a state-law property right to control the commercial use of a deceased person’s name, voice, and image. It differs from state to state.

Texas. Texas Property Code Chapter 26, according to a Texas law firm’s summary, establishes a property right in a deceased individual’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness when that attribute had commercial value at death or gains it later. It generally lasts 50 years after death. Subject to the permitted uses in Section 26.012, written consent from a person entitled to exercise the right is required before someone uses the deceased person’s protected identity in connection with goods or to advertise, sell, or solicit goods or services. The same summary notes the right can expire after the first year if the individual made no disposition of it and no qualifying survivor exists.

California. A longer-standing statute, Civil Code § 3344.1, protects a deceased “personality” for 70 years, according to legal summaries. Before 2025, its coverage was limited to uses on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for advertising and selling. Assembly Bill 1836, effective January 1, 2025, added a prohibition on producing or distributing a digital replica of a deceased personality’s voice or likeness in an expressive audiovisual work or sound recording without prior consent from the estate; law-firm summaries describe it as aimed at performers, and one guide reports a minimum damages floor of $10,000.

New York. A legal overview reports a 40-year postmortem right under Civil Rights Law § 50-f.

Tennessee. The Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security (ELVIS) Act took effect July 1, 2024 and is described as the first state law written specifically for AI voice cloning.

Other states, including Illinois, have recent bills or laws, and not every state recognizes a postmortem right. Check your state.

What do these laws actually cover?

Mostly commercial and performance contexts: advertising, merchandise, films, music, and similar uses. They typically give the right to the deceased person’s heirs, assignees, or estate, and a legal guide notes the right can be transferred by contract, trust, or will. They also contain exceptions, such as for news, commentary, and some expressive works. A family member creating a private chatbot or video of a loved one to cope with grief isn’t clearly covered or clearly prohibited by these statutes, which is part of why the question is open. It also doesn’t mean there are no limits.

What other rules might apply?

• Privacy and access to data. Under Texas’s digital-assets law, a fiduciary’s access to the content of a deceased person’s electronic communications depends on the user’s direction and the terms of service, so using someone’s private messages as training material may not be allowed by the platform or the law, and other people’s messages are in those conversations too; see can your family access your email?
• Platform and tool rules. Many AI services prohibit using someone else’s likeness or voice without permission, and may remove content
• Deception and fraud. Using a cloned voice to deceive people, for instance to ask for money, is a different problem, and general fraud and impersonation laws may apply; talk to an attorney
• Defamation or emotional harm. Putting false words into a real person’s mouth, publicly, can create other legal risks

What should families do?

• If the use is private, consider the ethical questions first; see should you make an AI version of someone who died?
• If the use is public or commercial, such as a video, social media, an event, or an ad, get written consent from the person entitled to the right and talk to an attorney
• Ask who holds the rights. Often the estate or heirs; check the will or trust
• If someone misuses your loved one’s likeness, document it, contact the platform to request removal, and consult an attorney about your state’s law

How can you protect your own likeness?

• Say what you want in writing. State in your will or digital-legacy document whether you permit AI recreations of your voice or likeness, for what purposes, and who decides
• Name a person to hold and exercise those rights; see digital legacy planning in advance and what happens to your AI when you die
• Consider your recordings. Public videos and podcasts can be used to clone a voice
• Check platform settings for how your data and voice can be used
• Update the plan as laws change

This is general educational information, not legal advice. The law on AI, voice, and likeness is changing fast; state summaries here come from law-firm and legal-publisher sources dated 2024 to 2026 and weren’t confirmed on official statute sites, and federal bill status is as of the cited source. An intellectual-property or media attorney can advise on a specific use.