“It Wasn’t Me”: Rethinking the Right of Publicity in the Context of AI-Generated Content
Alexa Spitz Critics have chastised the right of publicity for expanding beyond its practical and moral justifications. Although the criticism is meritorious, technological advancements call for a reevaluation of the right of publicity’s role in protecting the public from AI-generated “deepfakes.” Deepfake technology exudes exciting potential, but it also threatens to misappropriate and exploit individuals’ identities to the detriment of both victims and the public at large. Bad actors have already leveraged deepfake technology to perpetrate acts of nonconsensual pornography, bullying, and deceptive advertising. Such abuses inflict feelings of helplessness and loss of control on victims, and those feelings are...