Can You Copyright Your Likeness?

Questions about copyright and personal identity have become more common in recent years. Can you copyright your face? Is your voice protected by copyright? Can someone legally “own” a person’s likeness?

These questions usually surface when identity appears to be reused or replicated in a way that feels unauthorized, especially as digital likeness becomes easier to generate and distribute online. Because copyright protects books, music, films, and photographs, many people assume it must also protect the person behind those works. If something can be copied and carries value, it seems reasonable to expect that copyright law would apply.

That expectation, however, does not always match how the law is structured. Copyright was designed to protect certain types of creative expression. Whether identity itself fits into that framework is a separate question.

This article examines what copyright law actually protects, why a face, voice, or persona does not automatically qualify as a copyrighted work, and why confusion around this issue continues to grow.

Why Many People Assume Their Likeness Is Protected by Copyright

To understand why this question keeps coming up, it helps to look at how most people think about ownership online.

Copyright is the form of protection people recognize most easily. They know that songs are protected. Movies are protected. Photographs are protected. When those works are copied without permission, it is called infringement. Over time, this has shaped a simple assumption: if something is copied, copyright must be involved.

That assumption becomes harder to untangle when identity is part of the picture. A face appears in a photograph. A voice is captured in a recording. A personality can define a performance. Because identity shows up inside copyrighted works, it can feel like identity itself must also be copyrighted.

Technology has made this confusion more visible. When someone sees a cloned voice, a generated face, or an image reused in a new setting, they are not thinking about legal categories. They are thinking about ownership. If it looks like me or sounds like me, shouldn’t that be protected?

The challenge is that copyright does not protect everything that feels personal or valuable. It protects specific kinds of creative works. Understanding that boundary requires looking at what copyright law is actually designed to cover.

What Copyright Law Actually Protects

Copyright law covers original works of authorship that are expressed in a tangible form. In the United States, this includes literary works, music, sound recordings, films, photographs, visual art, and other creative works. Protection applies to the expression that is created, not to ideas, facts, or people.

Three basic requirements determine whether something qualifies for copyright protection:

• Authorship. A work must be created by a human being. Copyright does not arise from something that simply exists. It arises from an act of creation.
• Originality. The work does not have to be groundbreaking or completely unique, but the creator must have made at least some creative choices, whether in composition, wording, arrangement, or performance.
• Fixation. The work must be fixed in a tangible medium. It has to be recorded, written down, filmed, saved, or otherwise captured in a form that can be seen, heard, or reproduced.

Once these elements are met, copyright protection attaches automatically. Registration is not required for protection to exist, though it can become important if enforcement is necessary.

This is why a photograph of you can be copyrighted. The photographer made creative decisions about framing, lighting, and timing, and the image is fixed in a file. A recorded speech can also be copyrighted because the performance is captured in a recording.

You, however, are not a work of authorship. Your face, voice, or personality may appear within a copyrighted work, but they are not themselves created works. Copyright protects the expression that captures identity, not the identity itself.

​​What Happens When AI Uses Your Likeness Without Copying a Specific Work

This issue becomes more complicated when AI systems generate media that resembles a person without directly copying a specific existing work. Under copyright law, the central question is whether a protected work, such as a photograph or sound recording, was reproduced. It is not enough that something looks or sounds familiar.

This is where much of the confusion begins.

1. AI Voices That Sound Like Real People

In early 2026, former National Public Radio host David Greene said he was “completely freaked out” when he heard an AI-generated podcast voice that sounded very much like his own. Friends and colleagues reached out asking whether he had licensed his voice to the company that made the tool, and Greene later filed a lawsuit against the developer over how closely the synthetic voice tracked his delivery.

From a copyright standpoint, the focus remains on whether a specific recording was copied. A voice that sounds similar to someone does not automatically mean that a copyrighted recording was reproduced. Copyright protects the recorded performance itself, not the general sound of a person’s natural voice. The fact that listeners recognized the voice as his shows how convincing these tools can be, but similarity alone does not demonstrate that protected expression from a particular recording was copied.

Questions sometimes arise about how these systems were trained or what material they were exposed to. When evaluating the output on its own, the legal analysis returns to the same point. Was an identifiable protected recording reproduced in whole or in part.

2. Faces and Look-Alike Images

Image generation tools can produce faces that call to mind real individuals without duplicating any particular photograph. A system might generate a realistic portrait that reminds you of someone, yet it may not reproduce protected elements from any specific image.

Copyright protects a particular photograph because the photographer made creative choices about lighting, composition, and timing. It does not protect the underlying facial features of the person depicted.

If an image generator reproduces protected expressive elements from a specific photograph, infringement may be possible. But visual similarity, without copying protected expression from an identifiable work, is generally not enough.

3. Deepfakes That Mimic Mannerisms or Style

Some generated videos imitate the appearance and movements of real people without using actual clips from existing footage. Copyright law focuses on whether protected audiovisual expression from a specific work was reproduced.

If a deepfake includes footage taken from a copyrighted film or broadcast, that may raise a copyright issue. If the video is entirely synthetic and does not copy protected expressive elements from an identifiable work, the analysis changes. Copyright does not automatically extend to a person’s general appearance, mannerisms, or speaking style.

Across these examples, the pattern remains consistent. Copyright protection turns on whether protected expression from a specific creative work was copied in whole or in part. Familiarity alone does not resolve that question.

If Copyright Does Not Protect Identity, What Does?

If your face, voice, or persona is not protected by copyright on its own, that does not mean you have no protection. It simply means copyright is not the tool that addresses that problem.

In the United States, when someone uses another person’s name, image, voice, or recognizable likeness to sell or promote something without permission, the issue is usually handled under the right of publicity. This allows people to take action when their identity is used in advertising, marketing, endorsements, or other commercial settings without their consent.

The focus here is different from copyright. The question is not whether a specific photo or recording was copied. The question is whether someone used your identity to create commercial value without authorization.

Other laws can also apply depending on what happened.

Privacy law may come into play if someone uses your identity in a way that exposes private information or creates a false impression about you. Defamation law applies if false statements are presented as fact and harm your reputation. Contracts often control how a person’s likeness can be used in professional settings, such as employment agreements, talent deals, or licensing arrangements. Online platforms also have rules against impersonation and deceptive use of identity, which can lead to content being removed even when copyright is not involved.

The key point is that identity is regulated, just not always through copyright.

Conclusion

The tension between identity and copyright is unlikely to disappear. As tools that generate synthetic media become more accessible, the volume of content that resembles real people will continue to grow. That reality will place increasing pressure on how courts, platforms, and lawmakers interpret the boundaries of existing law.

Copyright doctrine itself may not change dramatically, but how it is applied will continue to be tested. Judges will face more questions about similarity, transformation, and what it means to reproduce a work in systems capable of generating new outputs at scale. At the same time, creators and rightsholders will push for clearer standards around how digital tools interact with protected material.

We are entering a period where the line between copying a work and simulating a person will be examined more closely than ever. How that line is drawn will influence how creative industries adapt, how platforms build safeguards, and how individuals understand their rights in digital environments.

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