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AI Legislation Series: Denmark seeks to give individuals "copyright" control over their own likeness.

  • Gov+AI
  • 4 days ago
  • 4 min read

Updated: 24 hours ago


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Denmark is moving to give individuals stronger copyright-like control over their own likeness in the face of AI-generated deepfakes. The idea is to treat a person’s image, voice, and other identifiable traits as something that can be owned and protected under copyright-like laws, making it easier to remove unauthorised uses and to seek damages.


What’s being proposed and why it matters


Protecting identity in the age of AI: As AI can imitate a person’s face, voice, or movements, there are increasing incidents in the creation of realistic deepfakes for misleading, exploitative, or harmful purposes. This proposal aims to give individuals legal rights and clear remedies when their likeness is misued.


A broader approach to enforcement: By treating likeness as protectable under copyright-like rules, individuals can pursue takedowns and damages when platforms, producers, or others use their features without consent. This shifts some enforcement burden to platforms and give rights to individuals to demand speedy removal of infringing content.


What the proposed protections include


Likeness as property: A person’s face, voice, and body movements could be protected as an intellectual property asset. This means unauthorised AI-generated reproductions could trigger rights similar to copyright or related rights.


Consent and takedown duties: If content uses someone’s likeness without permission, there could be a formal right to demand removal from digital platforms and to pursue compensation for harm.


Platform accountability and penalties: Online platforms may face penalties or liability if they fail to comply with takedown requests or otherwise facilitate unauthorised deepfakes of individuals.


Scope beyond celebrities: The idea is to cover everyday individuals, not only public figures, recognising that any person’s identity could be exploited by AI.


What this could mean in practice

For individuals: A clearer route to control how their likeness is used by AI tools, with potential relief through takedown processes and the possibility of damages for misuse.


For AI developers and platforms: Additional compliance obligations to verify consent, to remove unauthorised uses, and to respond to takedown requests promptly. This could influence product design, consent flows, and content moderation practices.


For businesses and content creators: A need to secure consent for using someone’s likeness in AI-generated content and to implement robust processes for honoring takedown notices to avoid liability.


Technical feasibility: The law may prompt clearer standards for identifying and attributing authorised uses, and for verifying consent in AI workflows.


If passed and implemented, other countries could follow suit so that consistent standards be applied.


What to monitor

Legislative status and final text: the exact wording, including definitions of “likeness,” “voice,” and “movement,” and how consent is obtained and proven is yet to be settled. This will be central to the law.


Regulatory guidance: Regulatory bodies will be expected to to publish guidelines on how takedowns, penalties, and enforcement will operate in practice. It is unclear at the moment what this will look like.


Industry responses: AI platforms and content creators will likely update terms of service, consent mechanisms, and content moderation policies in response to these developments. Ideally this will be a global update, rather than Denmark specific. The adoption of similar laws by other countries will help with this.


If taken up by other jurisdictions there whould be strong value in a consistent approach taken on definitions and guidance.



For individuals, section 73 a of the Danish Copyright Act addresses realistic audio and visual imitations. It consolidates elements of existing statutory and non-statutory rules and legal principles within the Danish Criminal Code, the Danish Marketing Law, and the GDPR. The protection period is set to be 50 years from the year of death of the individual being imitated.


The amendments proposed by this bill do not directly provide for compensation and imprisonment, but they allow individuals and performing artists with a legal basis to demand that illegal digital imitations be removed from social media and other platforms. Parties can consequently seek damages and compensation under the general rules of Danish law. Under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (EU DSA), if a platform does not remove illegal content after receiving a notification, the provider may be liable for financial consequences.


Critics have pointed to the limited capacity of the protective measures proposed by the bill. The laws are limited to Denmark, and the illegal deepfake content could still be accessible from other countries, even where the same content is made unavailable to users accessing social media platforms from within Denmark.



Sources

[1] Denmark to tackle deepfakes by giving people copyright to their own features https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/deepfakes-denmark-copyright-law-artificial-intelligence

[3] Denmark plans to thwart deepfakers by giving everyone copyright over their own features https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/27/business/denmark-ai-law-scli-intl

[5] Deepfake legislation: Denmark takes action | World Economic Forum https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/07/deepfake-legislation-denmark-digital-id/

[6] Danes Could Get Copyright to Their Own Image Under AI Bill | TIME https://time.com/7298425/ai-deepfakes-denmark-copyright-amendment/

[8] Denmark Amend Copyright Law to Combat AI Deepfakes https://ambadar.com/insights/denmark-amend-copyright-law-to-combat-ai-deepfakes/

[9] The First Step Towards Fighting AI Abuse? Denmark Grants ... https://www.remotestaff.com.au/blog/denmark-ai-face-copyright-law/

[10] Denmark's Copyright Update: A New Defence Against Deepfake https://www.frozenlight.ai/post/frozenlight/673/denmark-copyright-law-against-deepfake/

[11] Denmark proposes copyright laws to protect against deepfakes LSJ Online https://lsj.com.au/articles/denmark-proposes-copyright-laws-to-protect-against-deepfakes/


*This blog was produced with assitance from AI. All sources have been verified.

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