Plenty of states have passed deepfake laws since 2023. One keeps being called the template. Tennessee's ELVIS Act, the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, passed on March 21, 2024 and took effect on July 1, 2024, and a Vanderbilt law journal analysis calls it the gold standard for AI protections, arguing its key provisions belong in a federal right-of-publicity law. Our database carries it as one of 91 laws. This page is about the three design choices that separate it from the pile.
Voice is named, not implied
Older publicity law protected name, photograph and likeness, and left voice to case law about sound-alikes. The ELVIS Act names voice outright, which matters because the commercial harm arrived by voice first: cloned singers and cloned voice actors. A second Vanderbilt analysis, following the Lehrman v. Lovo case, where two voice actors found their voices allegedly cloned and marketed under a new name, shows the gap it fills: federal copyright and trademark claims failed because a voice is not a fixed work, and the claim that survived rode on state law.
The distributor clause
The provision lawyers cite most extends liability beyond the person who makes a clone to those who distribute the tools and content, the clause recorded at Tenn. Code Ann. section 47-25-1105(a)(3). That is a different theory of deterrence: not just the uploader, but the pipeline. Most of the 91 laws in our database stop at the creator. Tennessee's does not, and the trackers that rank state laws notice.
Why templates matter
States copy what works; the ELVIS Act's structure is the one being copied, and the pending federal NO FAKES Act borrows its logic. Whether the federal bill passes or not, the practical map for a working musician or voice actor is already Tennessee-shaped: consent first, voice covered, distributors liable. The Recitation Reel Maker shows how your own state's law compares, clause by clause, against that template.