California’s AI Actor Laws Are in Force—but Digital Doubles Aren’t Banned

California’s two performer-replica laws were signed on September 17, 2024, and have applied since January 1, 2025. They remain consequential for Hollywood, but the familiar claim that California simply made it illegal to impersonate a human actor with AI is too broad.

The current rules divide the issue into two narrower legal problems. One statute can make certain digital-replica clauses unenforceable for new performances by living people; the other creates civil liability for some unauthorized replicas of deceased personalities. Neither establishes a blanket criminal ban on AI-generated actors or digital doubles.

What changed for contracts with living performers

Assembly Bill 2602 added Section 927 to California’s Labor Code. It applies to agreements for personal or professional services when a digital replica would replace work that the individual otherwise would have performed in person.

The rule is deliberately conditional. Under the current text of Labor Code Section 927, a provision is unenforceable in relation to a new digital-replica performance fixed on or after January 1, 2025, only when all of several conditions are satisfied. The provision must authorize the replica to stand in for the person’s work, fail to describe its intended uses with reasonable specificity, and have been negotiated without qualifying legal or union representation.

That structure matters because the law does not declare digital-replica licenses inherently invalid. A sufficiently specific description can avoid the rule, as can negotiation by legal counsel under the statutory conditions or representation by a union whose collective bargaining agreement expressly addresses digital replicas. There is also an exception when an undescribed use remains consistent with both the services contract and the fundamental character of the recorded photography or soundtrack.

The statute therefore targets the combination of an open-ended grant and an unrepresented individual. It is meant to stop a producer from relying on vague contractual language to substitute a computer-generated performance later, but it still leaves room for negotiated and authorized uses.

What counts as a digital replica

For this contract rule, a digital replica is not just any edited recording. It must be a computer-generated, highly realistic representation that is readily identifiable as an individual’s voice or visual likeness. It covers a recording, image, audiovisual work or transmission in which the person did not perform, or in which the fundamental character of an actual performance was materially altered.

The definition excludes an authorized reproduction, sample, remix, mastering or digital remastering performed with the copyright holder’s permission. That boundary prevents ordinary post-production and licensed reuse from automatically becoming a regulated replica merely because digital tools were involved.

The statute also says “computer-generated,” not exclusively “generated by artificial intelligence.” The legal test consequently turns on the nature and use of the result rather than the marketing label attached to the software that produced it.

Deceased performers are covered by a different rule

Assembly Bill 1836 amended California’s existing post-mortem right-of-publicity statute. It addresses a person who produces, distributes or makes available a readily identifiable digital replica of a deceased personality’s voice or likeness in an expressive audiovisual work or sound recording without the required prior consent.

The current Civil Code Section 3344.1 provides liability equal to the greater of $10,000 or the actual damages suffered by the person controlling the relevant likeness rights. The protected category is a deceased person whose identity had commercial value at death or acquired such value because of the death; the broader post-mortem right generally lasts for 70 years.

This is a civil cause of action, not a declaration that every synthetic appearance of a dead actor is a crime. The statute also contains substantial exceptions. Consent is not required for uses connected with news, public affairs or sports; comment, criticism, scholarship, satire or parody; and certain documentary, historical or biographical portrayals.

A historical or biographical recreation can lose that protection when it is intended to create—and actually creates—the false impression that it is an authentic recording in which the deceased person participated. Fleeting or incidental appearances and advertisements for covered exempt works are also addressed by the exceptions.

Why the original “AI impersonation ban” shorthand is misleading

Calling the measures an impersonation ban collapses several distinctions. The living-performer law primarily controls whether a contractual clause can be enforced; the deceased-personality law creates liability subject to consent requirements, territorial limits and expressive-use exceptions. Neither measure makes the mere existence of a synthetic actor universally unlawful.

The legislation was nevertheless a significant response to entertainment workers’ concerns about control over their identities. In the California governor’s September 2024 signing announcement, the administration presented AB 2602 and AB 1836 as companion protections for living performers and the estates of deceased performers. Both bills were approved and filed with the secretary of state on September 17, 2024.

The practical consequence is less sweeping but more precise than the headline suggested: producers cannot safely treat a performer’s identity as an unlimited asset obtained through generic paperwork. They must determine whose likeness is being recreated, whether the individual is living, what the contract specifically authorizes, who represented the performer and whether an exception applies.

What performers and creators should take from the laws

For a living performer, the central document is the services agreement. A useful clause should identify the intended replica uses with enough detail to connect consent to a project and type of performance, while the parties should preserve clear records of counsel or union representation where applicable.

For a deceased personality, permission must come from the person or people entitled to control the rights unless the use falls within a statutory exception. Successors and licensees also face registration requirements before they can recover damages for prohibited uses occurring before their claim was registered.

Creators should not treat these California provisions as a universal answer for every production distributed nationally. The statutes define particular California rights and remedies, while other jurisdictions may apply different publicity, contract or digital-replica rules. The durable takeaway is that authorization, contractual specificity and the context in which a synthetic performance appears now matter more than whether a production simply describes its tool as “AI.”

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