In what could be viewed as a significant move for preventing the livelihood of actors and workers of entertaintment industry, the California law now prevents cloning of both dead and alive celebrities. Deepfakes have increased by a long mile in the recent years. According to a report by Sumsub, the global incidences of deepfakes have increased by nearly tenfold.

California governor Gavin Newsome signed two bills on 17th September 2024 which would mandate deepfakes creators to get explicit consent of the actors of whom they want to portray in their deepfake video. This law would certainly enable more protection to the livelihood of the workers.

Deepfake technology have been used for the better of notable dead people including the likes of John Lenon, Elvis Presley and Joaquin Oliver (the 18 yr old victim of school shooting).

However, Bollywood celebrities like Aamir Khan’s Deepfake video was used to encourage people to vote for the Congress Party ahead of the 2024 Indian elections. In Aamir’s deepfake video, the figure could be seen taking a subtle dig at the current Indian Prime Minister.

Rashmika Mandanna, another noted Bollywood celebrity suffered from her cloning video too when a fan imposed her face onto another celebrity.

Bill Restricting Cloning of Politicians

One of the significant problems with deepfakes is that the identity of the creator can rarely be traced. And as we have seen in recent years, deepfakes are mostly used to spread wrong information and to gain views.

One of the bills signed by the California governor is AB 2355 which prohibits the creation and distribution of deepfake videos of political figures of 120 days before the election and 60 days after the election in some cases.

Should other nations also adopt similar approach

Deepfakes of public personalities especially of political figures can incite violence especially in a country like India where people can be extremely polarized on the basis of caste, religion and opinions.