Washington State has enacted one of the most expansive deepfake-related personality rights statutes in the country. Rather than creating a standalone AI regime, Washington folded AI-generated replicas directly into its existing right of publicity framework under the Washington Personality Rights Act (WPRA) and extended protection to all individuals—regardless of fame, domicile, or the commercial value of their identity. The result is a statute with unusually broad reach and robust remedies.  The new law goes into effect on June 10, 2026.

This post summarizes the new law’s key features, compares it to analogous legislation in New York and California, and identifies the constitutional questions it is likely to face.

What Washington’s New Law Does

• Defines “Forged Digital Likeness”

The law centers on the unauthorized use of a “forged digital likeness,” defined as a digitally created or altered image or audio representation that: (1) is indistinguishable from a genuine depiction; (2) misrepresents the person’s appearance, speech, or conduct; and (3) is likely to deceive a reasonable person.

• Protects All Individuals, Regardless of Celebrity Status or Domicile

The statute protects every person, living or deceased. There is no requirement that the individual have commercial value or celebrity status, and the law applies regardless of where the individual lived or died.

• Reaches Both Commercial and Non-Commercial Uses

Washington imposes liability for unauthorized uses of a forged digital likeness across a notably wide range of contexts, including advertising, products and merchandise, fundraising, solicitation of donations, and—critically—nonprofit or non-commercial contexts.

• Provides Robust Remedies, Including Noneconomic Damages

The statute authorizes statutory damages, actual damages, disgorgement of profits, and attorneys’ fees. Most notably, it also permits recovery of noneconomic damages for emotional distress, humiliation, and reputational harm—a remedy that goes beyond what most right of publicity statutes offer.

How Washington’s Law Compares

New York and California have both addressed the unauthorized use of AI-generated likenesses, but their approaches are considerably narrower. New York has imposed disclosure requirements for “synthetic performers” in advertising and a separate digital-replica right covering only deceased personalities and performers domiciled in New York at death. California similarly targets specific contexts: AB 2602 governs digital-replica clauses in personal-services contracts, and AB 1836 extends post-mortem protections for deceased personalities into expressive audiovisual works and sound recordings — a category previously exempt from liability under California law — subject to carve-outs for noncommercial uses like news, satire, and documentary or biographical works, as well as advertisements for those exempt works. Both states retain the traditional commercial-use focus and tie post-mortem rights to domicile.

Washington departs from this model in several meaningful ways. First, rather than targeting discrete use cases, Washington adopts a general deepfake impersonation rule that applies to any deceptive AI-generated likeness of an identifiable person—living or dead—with no domicile limitation. Second, Washington expressly reaches non-commercial and nonprofit uses, a category that New York and California leave largely untouched. Third, Washington’s remedial scheme is more expansive, layering noneconomic damages onto the traditional menu of monetary relief available in right of publicity cases (e.g., profits, civil penalties).

Constitutional Questions

The Washington law’s breadth also raises significant constitutional concerns, particularly under the First Amendment and Due Process.

First Amendment

Traditionally, right of publicity laws draw a clear line between commercial and non-commercial uses because of the First Amendment. Courts have long recognized that commercial advertising may be restricted in ways that expressive speech like news, commentary, and political speech cannot. See, e.g., Hoffman v. Cap. Cities/ABC, Inc., 255 F.3d 1180, 1184–86 (9th Cir. 2001).

Washington’s statute rejects that distinction. By imposing liability for unauthorized use of a forged digital likeness even in non-commercial and expressive contexts, the law raises several questions that are likely to be tested in litigation: Does a news organization face liability for using a digital reconstruction to illustrate a breaking story? What about a documentary or historical work that uses AI to recreate events? Would a clear disclaimer (“digitally reconstructed for illustrative purposes”) cure a violation? The statute does not answer these questions. Washington is currently the only state to have created a deepfake right of publicity that squarely reaches non-commercial speech, and we expect to see a First Amendment challenge to it.

Due Process and Extraterritorial Reach

Other jurisdictions have traditionally conditioned the right to bring a post-mortem right of publicity claim on the decedent’s domicile at death—a limiting principle that also serves to constrain a statute’s extraterritorial reach. Washington rejects that requirement entirely, leaving due process as one of the few available backstops against its potential application to individuals with no meaningful connection to the state.

The WPRA’s rejection of domicile as a limiting principle is not new and it has already survived one constitutional challenge, albeit narrowly. In Experience Hendrix L.L.C. v. Hendrixlicensing.com Ltd., 762 F.3d 829 (9th Cir. 2014), the Ninth Circuit upheld the WPRA’s application to the post-mortem publicity rights of Jimi Hendrix (New York domiciliary, which at the time had no such protections), holding that Washington had sufficiently significant contacts with that particular dispute to satisfy Due Process. But the court expressly limited its holding to the “narrow, non-speculative circumstances” before it, declining to resolve the broader question of whether the WPRA’s disregard of domicile is constitutional in other contexts. 

Enter the newly enacted law: Consider a documentary filmmaker based in New York who uses an AI-generated reconstruction of a deceased Florida resident — someone with no connection to Washington — to illustrate a historical event. The film is distributed nationally, with no particular targeting of Washington audiences. Under the amended WPRA, the filmmaker could face liability in Washington, even though neither the subject, the creator, nor the conduct has any meaningful tie to the state. That is a materially different scenario than the Washington-targeted commercial sales at issue in Experience Hendrix, which by its own terms does not foreclose a distinct Due Process challenge.

What’s Next?

Washington’s new law represents a significant departure from the context-specific approach that other states have taken to regulating AI-generated likenesses. Its combination of universal coverage, non-commercial reach, and noneconomic damages creates real exposure, and real constitutional friction. We expect the statute to face challenges in the near term and will be tracking these developments closely. We will also keep tabs on whether Washington’s expansive approach influences the next wave of state-level AI legislation.