Denmark’s culture minister, Zenia Stampe, tabled a bill in parliament on 8 October that would let people treat their own face, voice and movements like copyrighted work, according to Euronews. If passed, anyone who wants to publish a realistic AI-generated likeness of a named person — without their consent — will have to prove that consent existed, not the other way round. The government wants it in force by 1 January 2027.
It is the first law of its kind: not a ban on sexual deepfakes specifically, and not a criminal offence like the ones the UK and some US states have passed, but a property-style right over your own likeness, sitting inside Denmark’s copyright act.
Why it matters to creators
Most of the deepfake laws creators have seen so far — the UK’s Crime and Policing Act offences, the stalled US NO FAKES Act — work by criminalising the act of making or sharing a non-consensual sexual deepfake. Denmark’s bill does something different: it hands you an ownership-style claim over your own face and voice, full stop, whether the content is sexual, political or just a knockoff AI “twin” selling something you never endorsed. That matters for creators specifically because so much of the non-consensual AI content made of OnlyFans and Fansly performers isn’t sexual deepfakes dressed up as news or satire — it’s AI chatbots and “digital twins” trained on a creator’s face and voice to scam fans, which existing deepfake-porn laws don’t always reach. A copyright-style right is built to catch exactly that.
The bill also puts the burden of proof on whoever publishes the content, not on the person depicted. That flips the practical reality creators currently face: right now, if your likeness turns up in an AI video, you’re the one who has to prove it’s fake and non-consensual before a platform acts. Under Denmark’s model, the publisher has to show you said yes.
What the bill actually does
The bill — known as L 49 — creates two separate rights inside the Danish Copyright Act. The first, a new section 73a, protects “personal characteristics”: a realistic AI-generated imitation of anyone’s face, voice or movements can’t be shared publicly without consent, and that applies to private citizens and public figures alike, Danish or foreign. The second, section 65a, gives performers and artists a closer-to-traditional-copyright claim over digital imitations of their actual performances.
Consent has to meet the same bar as under data protection law — voluntary, specific, informed and unambiguous — and it can be withdrawn at any time, with the withdrawal applying only to future use, not retroactively. There’s no new criminal offence attached to the personal-characteristics right; instead, courts can award damages, order content removed, and order it destroyed or handed over, via Denmark’s existing copyright enforcement powers.
Satire, parody and criticism of public figures are explicitly carved out — but that exemption stops applying if the content amounts to misinformation capable of causing serious harm, which closes an obvious loophole for “just a joke” deepfakes aimed at damaging someone’s reputation or finances.
The catch
This is a bill, not a law — it still has to clear the Folketing, and Danish lawmakers have form here: an earlier version of this proposal lapsed when the last election was called. Even if it passes on schedule, enforcement runs through Denmark’s civil courts rather than the police, which means a creator outside Denmark would likely need Danish legal representation to actually use it. Legal scholars have also flagged an unresolved tension in the drafting over whether social platforms count as “publishers” under the new right or are exempted as hosting services under the EU’s Digital Services Act — which is exactly the question that decides whether this law can actually force Instagram or X to take something down, or only lets you sue the person who made it.
It’s also narrower than it sounds: it only covers “realistic” imitations, meaning content that creates an obvious risk of being mistaken for the real thing. Stylised AI art, fantasy characters and anything that doesn’t read as a plausible recording of you is outside its scope.
What to do now
- If you perform under a stage name but your real likeness is well known, this is worth tracking — the personal-characteristics right would apply to you as a foreign national even if you’ve never been to Denmark, since section 73a isn’t limited to Danish citizens.
- Keep dated, timestamped proof of your official content (platform upload logs, original files) now. Any future claim — in Denmark or elsewhere — will be easier to bring if you can show clearly what you did and didn’t consent to.
- If an agency, AI tool vendor or brand asks you to sign away rights to your face or voice for AI training or a “digital twin,” read it as though laws like this one are coming: a blanket, irrevocable licence is the opposite of what Denmark’s consent standard is built around, and it’s a red flag regardless of jurisdiction.
- Don’t wait on legislation to protect you today. Keep reporting non-consensual deepfakes and AI impersonation through your platform’s existing tools and the takedown routes already available to you — this bill, even if passed on schedule, won’t be enforceable until 2027 at the earliest.
This is general information, not legal advice — speak to a qualified professional about your situation, particularly if you’re considering cross-border enforcement.
Denmark isn’t acting entirely alone: an EU directive on violence against women requires member states to criminalise non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes by June 2027, though Denmark’s opt-out from EU justice rules means this bill is its own, separate effort. France already restricts sharing undisclosed AI-manipulated images of real people, and England and Wales made creating or requesting non-consensual intimate deepfakes a criminal offence earlier this year. What’s genuinely new about Denmark’s approach is treating your likeness as something closer to property than a privacy right — which is exactly the gap creators who’ve had their faces and voices stolen for AI content have been falling through. For context on how severe the underlying harm can be, one Nude Newz profile told us what it’s like when a platform simply can’t help once content is already out there — which is the exact gap a workable, globally enforceable version of this right would need to close.
