The Ensuring Likeness, Voice and Image Security Act — or ELVIS Act — passed in both its state House and Senate committee meetings Tuesday.
Now, the bill heads to the calendar committees to be scheduled for its third reading on the floor.
The legislation, brought by Gov. Bill Lee, was sponsored in the House by Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland) who spoke at the Commerce Committee about its importance.
“If you hear just the first few bars of a song by Elvis, or Willie Nelson, or Dolly Parton, or any number of stars out there, you immediately know who that is,” Lamberth said. “Their voice is distinctive. It’s their art.”
The bill would make Tennessee the first state to address protections for individuals from artificial intelligence as deep fakes circle the internet and questions emerge over the seeming use of an artist's voice in AI-generated songs.
Emily Burrows leads Nashville-based Bass, Berry and Sims' AI law practice and says watching these bills as they work their way through sessions across the U.S. is important for helping their clients, for example, to keep compliant in their contracts and not have to make changes every time a new law is passed.
“With all the AI regulations that are going on, the technology is changing faster than the laws are and so it's just a matter of being realistic in what the laws say and how that impacts technology,” Burrows said. “But it's just a matter of balancing the need for innovation, which is a great thing. And it has helped musicians and other people as well versus protecting individual rights.”
Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), who sponsors the companion Senate bill, spoke about the legislation during a Policy Talks session in Williamson County.
“There’s a lot of conversations about AI and technology and where that’s all going. Some of that is very exciting; some of it is very scary,” Johnson said.
The act would add "voice" to the protections that already exist for Tennesseans’ name, image and likeness. Some other states, such as California, do have voice protections already. However, what would be new in Tennessee’s law is the language that’s included for “an algorithm, software, tool or other technology, service or device.”
“At the core of this bill ... we’re protecting their voices from some robot somewhere or another stealing their art and then putting it out there and making money off of it,” Lamberth said.
Songwriter and recording artist Natalie Grant also spoke during the House Commerce Committee meeting.
“This is not just a problem that affects celebrities; this is a human problem that affects us all,” Grant said. “As a faith-based artist, the idea that my face and likeness could be also used in a way that opposes my beliefs and a message that I have spent the last 25 years promoting is honestly terrifying.”
Tim Estes, CEO and founder of Angel AI and co-founder of Nashville’s Innovation Studio, said that, because the technology has been so new, there have not been good guidelines to follow. Similarly, tech companies have had to extrapolate their own ideas about where the line should be from legacy legal standards.
“The AI world is having kind of its Napster moment with the New York Times suit against OpenAI,” Estes said. “We can’t expunge the idea of memory from AIs without essentially stopping progress on it because they have to have some kind of memory. What we can do is ensure commercial safeguards around what that memory can create and what that memory can be allowed to produce. And those safeguards today seem woefully inadequate.”
David Hodges, songwriter and founding member of the band Evanescence, said during the House Commerce Committee meeting that the use of technology to create unauthorized work of an artist is blatantly wrong.
“By adding the word 'voice,' the ELVIS act modernizes current law and makes it crystal clear that an unauthorized AI-generated fake recording is subject to legal action in Tennessee,” Hodges said.