Deepfakes and Identity - Denmark’s Bold Experiment with Copyright Law

In early 2024, explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift went viral, with one post on X (formerly Twitter) receiving more than 47 million views. While sensational in itself, the episode raised a deeper legal issue: how should the law respond when a person’s likeness can be digitally replicated with near-perfect realism, often without their consent?

Another instance of a famous woman being a victim of AI is Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands who, only 21 years old and heir to the Dutch throne, was recently targeted in a pornographic deepfake scandal.

The  threat of deepfake affects not only celebrities, but any and all with an online presence.

At the corporate level, fraudsters are using AI-manipulated audio to impersonate executives and authorise fraudulent fund transfers, with companies such as Ferrari and Arup reporting a near miss of multimillion-euro losses.

Deepfakes, hyper-realistic videos, images, or audio enhanced by artificial intelligence, present unique legal challenges. Unlike traditional photo editing, which is more easily identified, AI-driven deepfakes can mimic real people so convincingly that they blur the line between truth and fabrication. The results undermine trust, damage reputations, and defraud businesses.

Existing legal frameworks on fraud, harassment, and defamation have struggled to keep pace with the speed and realism of this technology.

This raises a provocative question: what if identity itself could be copyrighted? Should the law allow individuals to claim legal ownership of their face, voice, and likeness, in the same way one might own a song, a screenplay, or a company logo?

Denmark is moving towards becoming the first country in the world to do exactly that. A proposed amendment to the Danish Copyright Act would extend copyright-style protections to personal identity, giving individuals legal control over the commercial and unauthorised use of their likeness.

In doing so, Denmark is attempting to shift from a reactive model, where the law prosecutes harmful deepfakes after the damage is done, to a proactive model that prevents such use in the first place.

The implications are profound. By granting IP-style ownership of identity, unauthorised use of a likeness, whether in pornography, scams, or commercial exploitation, would not only be a moral or criminal wrong but an intellectual property violation. This represents a fundamental redefinition of identity as property, not merely personality.

Other jurisdictions are watching closely. The UK, under the Online Safety Act 2023, has moved to criminalise the sharing of explicit deepfake content without consent. The EU has addressed aspects of digital manipulation through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), particularly its provisions on consent and processing of biometric data (Article 9 GDPR). In the United States, several states have strengthened the “right of publicity”, long recognised in cases such as Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting, to protect against unauthorised commercial use of likenesses, though there is no comprehensive federal standard.

Denmark’s proposal goes further than these models by conceptualising personal identity as a proprietary right in its own standing. Legal scholars suggest this could provide a template for the EU and beyond, especially as debates over the forthcoming EU AI Act intensify.

Of course, deepfakes are not confined to harmful uses. Hollywood and the advertising industry have already begun experimenting with posthumous digital performances and AI-generated endorsements.

When actress Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) died before the completion of The Rise of Skywalker (2019), CGI technology and unused footage were combined to reinsert her into new scenes.

More recently, Tom Hanks publicly objected to the use of his AI likeness in an online advert, while the daughter of Robin Williams condemned the use of AI to recreate her father’s voice as “very disturbing.”

These examples highlight the complex intersection of law, ethics, and commerce. In many jurisdictions, actors can already contractually license their likeness for use after death. Denmark’s proposal, however, raises the stakes by framing such rights not merely as contractual permissions but as intellectual property entitlements enforceable under copyright law.

The jury is still out on whether this approach strikes the right balance. Critics caution that treating identity as property could restrict legitimate uses such as parody, satire, and artistic freedom, which enjoy protection under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Yet Denmark’s bold experiment may mark a turning point in how societies confront digital deception. If successful, it could become the first serious attempt to enshrine personal identity as a new form of intellectual property in the digital age, a precedent with perhaps global implications.