One Objection Stalls the NO FAKES Act. Artists Turn to State Law.

The federal bill that would give every American a right over AI copies of their voice and likeness came close to passing the Senate on September 30, 2026, and was stopped by a single objection. According to the Senate's official floor log, at 3:32 p.m. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) spoke on their bill, Blackburn asked for unanimous consent to pass S.4591 with the committee-reported substitute, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected.

Unanimous consent is a shortcut: it lets the Senate pass a bill without floor time, but any one senator can block it. With the chamber about to leave for the midterm elections, the objection leaves the bill in limbo.

What the bill would do

The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2026 was reintroduced on May 20, 2026, as S.4591 in the Senate and H.R.8915 in the House. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced it unanimously by voice vote on June 18. As summarized by Holland & Knight and Manatt, the bill would:

• Create a federal, licensable property right in a person's voice and visual likeness, with civil liability for unauthorized digital replicas.
• Hold platforms liable for hosting replicas they know were not authorized, using a DMCA-style notice-and-takedown process with counter-notices and a 14-day restoration window.
• Penalize knowingly false counter-notices at $25,000 per notice or actual damages.
• Exclude news, documentary, sports, biographical works, and comment, criticism and parody, among other uses.
• Preempt future state digital-replica laws while preserving existing ones such as Tennessee's ELVIS Act.

Why Cruz objected

Cruz said the exceptions for satire and political speech are not clear enough. "It creates an exception for what it calls bona fide parody, but it leaves to big tech to make the decision whether it falls in that exception or not," he said on the floor, as reported by Deadline. He said the bill could reach satirical sites such as The Babylon Bee and The Onion, and asked whether it would cover political uses of AI imagery, citing an AI image of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass made up as the Joker that was used by mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, as well as AI images posted by Donald Trump.

Blackburn rejected that reading. "We have worked with First Amendment legal experts in drafting the bill, and we are confident that it is First Amendment compliant," she said, according to Forbes, adding that courts, not tech platforms, would decide First Amendment questions. Cruz, who supported the bill in committee in June, said he wants it to pass and that his staff would work with the sponsors on stronger free-speech protections in the coming weeks.

Cruz is not the only critic. In June, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the takedown system would push platforms to remove lawful speech, citing potential penalties of up to $750,000 per work, and warned that a transferable likeness right could leave people who sign broad releases without control of their own faces and voices.

On the other side is an unusually wide coalition: record labels, film studios, entertainment unions and guilds, and technology companies including OpenAI and Google's YouTube all back the bill.

Meanwhile, the states and the courts

Federal delay does not leave artists with nothing. On the same day as the Senate objection, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 1111, which, according to the governor's office and the Transparency Coalition, updates the state's impersonation laws to cover the use of a digital replica with intent to impersonate someone. He also signed bills strengthening the California AI Transparency Act's provenance and watermarking rules.

Musicians are also testing older state laws in court. On August 31, Jason Isbell, David Lowery, Guy Forsyth and Eduardo Calle filed a proposed class action against Suno in federal court in Boston. Music Business Worldwide reported that the suit brings no copyright claims; it relies on state right-of-publicity law and Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act, alleging that Suno captures and stores "voiceprints" and responds to musicians' names with songs that evoke them. The plaintiffs seek more than $5 million in damages. Suno has said it intentionally does not use artist names as training metadata and has built filters to block such prompts, which the plaintiffs dispute.

Our analysis: why the federal question still matters

State laws differ, and an AI service operating nationwide can answer to a patchwork of standards. A federal right with a single takedown process would give a working singer one tool everywhere, which is why both labels and AI companies support it. The cost of that uniformity is the preemption clause, which would freeze state experimentation after the bill passes. The free-speech dispute is narrow and could be resolved with drafting changes, but the calendar is not on the sponsors' side.

What it means for artists now

Until a federal law passes, the practical protection for a singer's voice is contractual and documentary. Read any release or platform terms for language granting rights to your voice or likeness, keep records showing you are the source of your recordings, and know which state laws apply where you live. Starchild's model is built on that kind of consent: the catalog is built on human-written songs, every song carries an AI-transparency label, and the style models used for alternate versions are licensed, with revenue shared with the artists behind them.

Sources

• U.S. Senate Daily Press: Wednesday, September 30, 2026 floor log
• Deadline via Yahoo: Ted Cruz Blocks Senators' Effort To Pass No Fakes Act
• Forbes via Yahoo: Ted Cruz Stops Senate Effort To Pass AI Deepfake Bill
• Holland & Knight: Senate Committee Advances Bill to Protect Name, Image, Likeness and Voice Against Unauthorized AI Use
• Manatt: Congress Reintroduces the NO FAKES Act: What's New in the 2026 Bill
• EFF: The NO FAKES Act Could Silence Satire, Commentary, And News
• Office of the Governor of California: Governor Newsom signs more AI protections (September 30, 2026)
• Transparency Coalition: Gov. Newsom wraps California term by enacting 11 more laws on AI safety
• Music Business Worldwide: Jason Isbell and David Lowery are suing Suno in a class action suit