What California Assembly Bill 1836 (2024) - Use of Likeness: Digital Replica of Deceased Personality (Amendment to Civil Code Section 3344.1) requires
California Assembly Bill 1836 was chaptered on 17 September 2024 (Stats. 2024, Chap. 258) and amends California Civil Code Section 3344.1 to create a new statutory liability for the unauthorised production, distribution, or making available of a digital replica of a deceased personality's voice or visual likeness in an expressive audiovisual work or sound recording. The amendment defines a digital replica as a computer-generated, highly realistic electronic representation that is readily identifiable as the voice or visual likeness of an individual that is embodied in a sound recording, image, audiovisual work, or transmission in which the actual individual either did not actually perform or appear, or did perform or appear, but the fundamental character of the performance or appearance has been materially altered. A person who produces, distributes, or makes available a digital replica of a deceased personality's voice or likeness in an expressive audiovisual work or sound recording without prior consent is liable to any injured party in an amount equal to the greater of ten thousand dollars or the actual damages suffered by the person controlling the rights to the deceased personality's likeness. AB 1836 preserves Civil Code Section 3344.1's underlying right-of-publicity structure - the rights pass to those who received them via contract or testamentary transfer, or per the statutory succession order (surviving spouse, then children and grandchildren, then parents). The statute of limitations preserves the existing seventy-year postmortem term - no action may be brought by reason of any use of a deceased personality's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness occurring after the expiration of seventy years after the death of the deceased personality. AB 1836 preserves the Civil Code Section 3344.1 exemptions where the use is in a play, book, magazine, newspaper, musical composition, audiovisual work, radio or television program, single and original work of fine art, advertisement or commercial announcement for any of those works, or news, public affairs, sports broadcast, or political campaign - subject to the statutory limits on those exemptions. Prevailing parties may recover attorneys' fees and costs, and the statute preserves the punitive damages remedy where applicable. AB 1836 is the postmortem companion to California AB 2602 (signed the same legislative cycle) governing the use of digital replicas of living persons under collective bargaining agreement and contracts of employment, and operates alongside the federal NO FAKES Act (proposed) and California AB 2655 (defending democracy from deepfake deception) in the broader 2024 California digital replica regime.
Pillar: AI Governance & Law · Authority: California State Legislature, AB 1836 (Bauer-Kahan), chaptered by the Secretary of State on 17 September 2024 as Chapter 258, Statutes of 2024, amending California Civil Code Section 3344.1 · Version: 1.0.0 · Last updated:
Primary source: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1836
SHA-256 integrity: a30c2767f6e4066b6727145556c35acec2a0df3deeceeccb12e7bed1a650f48e
Primary Citations — 8 traced to source
- California Assembly Bill 1836 (Bauer-Kahan), chaptered 17 September 2024 as Chapter 258, Statutes of 2024, amending California Civil Code Section 3344.1 to create a statutory liability for the unauthorised production, distribution, or making available of a digital replica of a deceased personality's voice or visual likeness in an expressive audiovisual work or sound recording
- California Civil Code Section 3344.1 - the underlying right-of-publicity statute governing the use of a deceased personality's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness; preserved by AB 1836 including the rights succession order (surviving spouse, then children and grandchildren, then parents) and the seventy-year postmortem term
+ 6 more citations (full bibliography, deterministic workflow, actionable schema and crosswalks) included in the vault unlock — $0.01 via Skyfire / L402 / Direct Base USDC.
Access
- Discovery (free): /api/v1/nodes/us-ca-ab-1836-postmortem-digital-replicas-2024.json — 6-field metadata
- Vault (full node): /api/v1/vault/nodes/us-ca-ab-1836-postmortem-digital-replicas-2024.json — full 13-key payload, $0.01 USDC (L402/Skyfire/Direct Base)
- Canonical URL: https://bidda.com/intelligence/us-ca-ab-1836-postmortem-digital-replicas-2024
- Back to registry: Browse all 10,090 compliance nodes