A Federal Bill on AI Voice Clones Hits a Senate Vote June 18. It Would Make Your Voice Legally Yours.

A federal bill that would give every person, not just stars, the legal right to control AI clones of their own voice is heading for a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on June 18, 2026. It is the NO FAKES Act, and it carries platform liability of up to 750,000 dollars per work for hosting an unauthorized digital replica. For an artist in Houston whose voice is the product, this is the first federal answer to a problem the law never had a name for.

The gap is real and most people do not know it exists. The United States has no national right over your voice. Right of publicity is state law, a patchwork. Some states protect a voice, some do not, some only cover the famous, some only the living. So when an AI tool clones a singer and floats a fake song, the artist's options depend entirely on which state line they happen to stand behind.

Tennessee moved first. The ELVIS Act took effect on July 1, 2024, and it was the first state law to name a voice as a protected property right, covering both a real voice and a simulation of it. A strong shield. But it is one state. A national platform does not live in Tennessee.

The NO FAKES Act is the attempt to make it federal. It has been introduced before, and this 2026 version, reintroduced in May, has the widest coalition of support yet. The sponsors include Senators Chris Coons and Marsha Blackburn and Representatives Maria Salazar and Madeleine Dean, a bipartisan group.

What it would do is specific. It creates a federal right for any individual to authorize, or refuse, a computer-generated, realistic copy of their voice or likeness. That right would survive death for up to 70 years, and heirs could inherit and license it. Platforms that host an unauthorized replica could face damages reaching 750,000 dollars per work.

For the first time, the law would treat your voice as yours, whether you are a household name or recording your first song this weekend.

It is not a clean lock to pass, and honest reporting says so. Legal scholars have flagged that earlier drafts were too broad and could sweep in protected speech, parody, and commentary. The video game industry has pushed back on parts of the draft over performer-likeness concerns. A new content-monitoring infrastructure for platforms is not free, and who carries that cost is a live fight. A Judiciary vote is one step, not the finish line. The bill still needs the full Senate and the House.

YouTube has come out in support, framing the bill as consistent with its own work on AI and creator protection. That matters, because the platforms are exactly who the liability would land on, and a major one backing it changes the politics.

So what does a Houston artist actually do while Congress argues. Start with the asset itself. Your voice is intellectual property even before a federal law says so. Keep records of your recordings and release dates so you can prove a clone is a clone. Read the AI and rights clauses in any distribution, sync, or label deal you sign, because some contracts already try to grab AI-training or voice-replica rights in the fine print. The protection is coming in pieces. The artists who benefit fastest are the ones who treat their voice like the property it is, today, framed the way we cover rights in our creator education library.

Watch June 18. A yes vote in committee does not make it law. It does tell you which way the wind is blowing on the single biggest rights question facing working musicians right now, which is who owns the sound of you.

As of June 16, 2026.

Sources

1. Tech Times: NO FAKES Act heads to Senate vote June 18, 750K platform liability
2. U.S. Senate: Coons, Blackburn, Salazar, Dean reintroduce the NO FAKES Act
3. Congress.gov: text of the NO FAKES Act of 2025, H.R.2794
4. Recording Academy: Tennessee signs the ELVIS Act into law