Tennessee lawmakers push for AI protections for musicians

At both the state and federal level, Tennessee politicians are pushing protections for musicians against artificial intelligence producing fake works from them.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee legislative leaders and both musicians and music industry representatives gathered to introduce Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act.

The goal is to protect songwriters, performers and music industry professionals’ voice from misuse via AI.

“We will ensure that no one can steal the voices of Tennessee artists,” Lee said.

Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn released a draft bill looking for similar protections in Congress in October along with Chris Coons, D-Delaware, Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota.

“Songwriters, actors, and our incredibly talented creative community deserve the right to own their name, image, and likeness,” Blackburn said. “This legislation is a good first step in protecting our creative community, preventing AI models from stealing someone’s NIL, and ensuring that those rights are given primary consideration under the law.”

The Tennessee proposal would update the current Protection of Personal Rights law, which protects NIL but doesn’t address AI cloning.

The federal proposal, called the No Fakes Act, said the person sharing or creating an unauthorized replica can be liable for damages from the AI production.

The proposal mentions a song “Heart on my Sleeve” produced with AI likenesses of Drake and The Weeknd that had hundreds of thousands of YouTube views and was nearing an appearance on the popular streaming charts before it was removed by the streaming services.