United States of America: Senator released draft of TRUMP AMERICA AI Act including copyright protection regulation

On 18 March 2026, a United States Senator released a discussion draft of The Republic Unifying Meritocratic Performance Advancing Machine intelligence by Eliminating Regulatory Interstate Chaos Across American Industry Act. The NO FAKES Act of 2026 (Section 1202) would establish the digital replication right, granting each individual or right holder the right to authorise the use of their voice or visual likeness in a digital replica. The right would be a property right, licensable but not assignable during the life of the individual, and would survive death for a minimum of 10 years, renewable in 5-year periods upon registration with the Register of Copyrights, up to a maximum of 70 years after death. Statutory damages for violations would range from USD 5'000 per work for individuals to USD 750'000 per work for non-compliant online service providers. The Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks Act (Section 1302) would amend chapter 5 of title 17, United States Code, to enable the legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright to request a subpoena requiring a developer to disclose copies of or records identifying copyrighted works used to train a generative AI model, with developer non-compliance creating a rebuttable presumption that the developer copied the work. The Artificial Intelligence Copyright, Transparency, and Training Data Accountability title (Section 1501) would amend section 107 of title 17, United States Code, to provide that unauthorised reproduction or computational processing of copyrighted works for AI training shall not constitute fair use. The section would further provide that any AI created through inference, distillation, or similar processes is deemed to incorporate the copyrighted materials used in training the source model, unless the developer establishes by clear and convincing evidence that only authorised materials were used or that no copyrighted expression is embedded in or reproducible by the derivative AI, and that AI generation of content that reproduces or derives from copyrighted works constitutes infringement. The same title (Section 1502) would amend section 103 of title 17, United States Code, to provide that derivative works generated, synthesised, or produced by an AI system without the authorisation of the copyright owner of the underlying work shall be deemed infringing works ineligible for copyright protection, regardless of whether the absence of human authorship would otherwise limit a finding of infringement.