Musicians in Tennessee can now sue over AI-created impersonations, governor warns tech can 'destroy' industry

The governor of Tennessee has approved a law that aims to protect musical artists from exploitation or replication by artificial intelligence.

Gov. Bill Lee signed into law the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security (ELVIS) Act on Thursday at a honky-tonk bar in Nashville.

"There are certainly many things that are positive about what AI does," Lee said during the event. "It also, when fallen into the hands of bad actors, it can destroy this industry."

"It can rob an individual, these individual artists to whose unique God-given gifts transform people’s lives," the governor added. "It can steal those gifts, it can impersonate those gifts, it can subsequently create fake works that rob those artists of their intellectual property."

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The ELVIS Act is named after iconic singer Elvis Presley, whose image and likeness were widely exploited following his death.

Lee was joined by artists at Robert’s Western World honky-tonk for the signing, including major country stars Luke Bryan and Chris Jansen.

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Musical artists across genres have expressed concern about the rising popularity of artificial intelligence and its ability to synthesize songs using the voice of real singers.

Artificial intelligence programs have also been able to create entire songs in the style of musical artists via analysis of their existing bodies of work — though results vary drastically in quality.

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Nashville is one of the most popular cities in the nation for aspiring and established musical artists. Its live performance venues and many recording studio locations have made it a hub of the music industry.