# Right of Publicity by State: A 2026 Map > A state-by-state guide to the right of publicity in 2026 — which states have statutes, which rely on common law, and how protections differ. Guide | Author: Lidiia Levitska | Source: Intellectual Property Law (outsideipcounsel.com) Canonical: https://outsideipcounsel.com/guides/right-of-publicity-by-state/

Quick answer: The right of publicity in the United States is governed state by state, not federally. As of 2026, roughly half the states protect it by statute, most of the rest recognize it through common law, and a handful barely recognize it at all. Statutory strongholds include California (Civil Code §§3344 and 3344.1), New York (Civil Rights Law §§50–51 and 50-f), Indiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Texas, Florida, Nevada, and Washington. What varies most is whether the right survives death (and for how long), whether it covers voice, persona, and mannerisms, the damages available, and the free-speech defenses. Which state's law applies usually turns on where the person lives — or lived.

The right to control the commercial use of your own name, image, and likeness is one of the most valuable — and most confusing — assets in American law, because it does not come from a single national statute. It is a fifty-state patchwork, and the differences between states are not cosmetic. This guide maps that patchwork as it stands in 2026: which states have statutes, which run on common law, and how the protections actually diverge. ## Is there a federal right of publicity? No. Unlike copyright, patents, and federal trademarks, there is **no general federal right of publicity**. Protection lives in state statutes and state common law, which means the answer to "am I protected?" can flip when you cross a state line. Federal law fills only a few gaps: - **Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act** ([15 U.S.C. §1125(a)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1125)) can reach *false endorsement* — using a person's identity in a way that falsely implies they sponsor a product. - The **proposed NO FAKES Act** would create a federal right against unauthorized AI-generated voice and image replicas, but it is a bill, not yet law. We track it in [the NO FAKES Act and digital replica laws](/guides/no-fakes-act-digital-replica-laws/). Until Congress acts, the state map below is the whole game. For the underlying doctrine — what the right protects and where it came from — start with [what is the right of publicity](/guides/what-is-right-of-publicity/). ## How many states actually have a right of publicity? Broadly, states fall into four buckets: - **Statute plus common law** (the strongest): California, Ohio, Indiana, Texas, Florida, and others give plaintiffs both a written statute and a judge-made claim to fall back on. - **Statute only:** New York is the classic example — it has never recognized a common-law right of publicity and confines the claim to its Civil Rights Law. - **Common law only:** many states, including Georgia, Missouri, New Jersey, Michigan, and Connecticut, recognize the right purely through court decisions. - **Little or no recognition:** a small number of states have never clearly established the right by statute or case law, leaving plaintiffs to rely on related privacy or unfair-competition theories. In total, more than 30 states recognize some form of the right, and roughly two dozen do so by statute. The trend is toward *more* protection, not less — several states have amended their laws since 2020 to address AI and digital replicas. The **little-or-no-recognition** states are the trap for the unwary. In a handful of jurisdictions no court has squarely adopted the right and no statute creates it, so a plaintiff is left arguing analogous theories — appropriation-of-name-or-likeness invasion of privacy, unfair competition, or, where a mark is involved, false endorsement under federal trademark law. Those theories can work, but they carry different elements, different damages, and different defenses than a dedicated publicity claim. Never assume the right exists just because it feels like it should; confirm it in the specific state before you rely on it. The **common-law-only** states deserve a special word of caution. A judge-made right can be just as enforceable as a statute — Georgia, for instance, produced the landmark *Martin Luther King, Jr. Center v. American Heritage Products* decision recognizing a broad, descendible right — but you have to read the case law to know its contours, and those contours can shift with the next appellate decision. There is no tidy statutory checklist telling you the duration, the covered attributes, or the damages. That uncertainty is exactly why domicile and choice-of-law analysis matter so much: two people with identical facts can have very different claims depending on which side of a state line they live on. ## Which states have the strongest right-of-publicity statutes? A handful of states are the heavyweights, and it is worth knowing them by name because estates and litigants gravitate toward them. | State | Key statute | Post-mortem term | Notable scope | |---|---|---|---| | California | Civ. Code §3344 (living); §3344.1 (dead) | 70 years | Name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness | | New York | Civ. Rights Law §§50–51; §50-f (dead) | 40 years | Name, portrait, picture, voice; digital replicas | | Indiana | Ind. Code §32-36-1 | 100 years | Name, voice, signature, photo, gestures, mannerisms | | Tennessee | Personal Rights Protection Act; ELVIS Act | 10 years (extendable) | Name, likeness, and now **voice** vs. AI | | Ohio | Ohio Rev. Code §2741 + common law | 60 years | Persona; strong case-law backing | | Texas | Prop. Code §26.001 ("Buddy Holly Act") | 50 years | Post-mortem only by statute; living via common law | | Florida | Fla. Stat. §540.08 | 40 years | Name, portrait, photograph, likeness | | Nevada | NRS §§597.770–597.810 | 50 years | Name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness | | Washington | RCW ch. 63.60 | 10–75 years | Very broad; voice and distinctive characteristics | A few specifics that matter in practice: - **California** is the most litigated regime. [Civil Code §3344](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=3344) gives a living plaintiff the **greater of $750 or actual damages plus the infringer's profits**, and it authorizes punitive damages and attorney's fees. Its post-mortem statute, §3344.1, extends the right **70 years after death**. We cover it in depth in [the California right of publicity](/guides/right-of-publicity-california/). - **New York** is statute-only. It historically protected only the *living*, but in 2021 New York enacted **Civil Rights Law §50-f**, giving a 40-year post-mortem right to deceased "performers" and "personalities" and expressly reaching computer-generated digital replicas in pornographic and certain advertising contexts. - **Indiana** has one of the broadest statutes in the country, protecting name, voice, signature, photograph, image, likeness, distinctive appearance, gestures, and mannerisms, with a **100-year post-mortem term**. - **Tennessee** — home of Elvis — expanded its long-standing Personal Rights Protection Act with the **ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act)**, effective July 1, 2024, which explicitly protects a person's **voice** against unauthorized AI cloning. ## What varies most from state to state? If you take away one thing, take this: the *existence* of the right is only the beginning. The details that decide real cases differ enormously. - **Living vs. post-mortem.** Some states protect only the living (New York before 2021, and still no post-mortem right in some common-law states); others protect the dead for decades. Texas, notably, protects the dead by statute but leaves *living* plaintiffs to common law. - **Post-mortem duration.** This ranges from Tennessee's baseline 10 years (extendable indefinitely so long as the identity is commercially exploited) up to **100 years in Indiana and Oklahoma**, with California at 70, Nevada and Texas at 50, and Florida and New York at 40. - **Scope of what's protected.** The narrowest statutes cover only name and picture. The broadest — Indiana, Washington, and post-ELVIS Tennessee — reach voice, gestures, mannerisms, and distinctive characteristics, which matters intensely in the age of AI voice cloning and deepfakes. - **Damages and remedies.** Statutory minimums (California's $750), disgorgement of profits, punitive damages, and attorney's-fee shifting all vary. Common-law-only states often leave damages to general tort principles. - **Defenses.** Every regime must yield to the **First Amendment**, but states draw the line differently on news, biography, satire, and expressive works. ## What defenses cut across every state? No matter which state's law applies, the right of publicity is limited by free speech and a set of recurring defenses: - **Newsworthiness and the First Amendment.** Reporting on a public figure, biographies, documentaries, and commentary are generally protected. The one time the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the right — *Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting* (1977), an Ohio case — it held that broadcasting a performer's *entire* act could be actionable, but that ruling is narrow. - **The "transformative use" test.** California courts ask whether the defendant added significant creative expression, protecting works that transform a likeness into something new. - **Expressive and artistic works.** Films, songs, video games, and art often qualify, though outcomes are inconsistent across circuits. - **Consent.** A valid release is a complete defense — which is why written NIL and appearance agreements are non-negotiable. Because these defenses are applied unevenly, the same use can be lawful in one state and infringing in another. You can see how courts actually resolve these fights in our [right of publicity case archive](/topics/publicity/). ## Which state's law applies to my situation? This is the question that trips up most people, because a photo or ad rarely stays inside one state. For **post-mortem claims**, courts almost always apply the law of the **state where the person was domiciled at death**. That is why the estates of celebrities are often organized in strong-statute states — a person who dies domiciled in a state with no post-mortem right generally leaves heirs with nothing to enforce, even if the misuse happens in California. For **living plaintiffs**, choice-of-law is messier. Courts weigh the plaintiff's domicile against the place of the wrongful publication or sale. A national ad campaign that runs in California can pull in Civil Code §3344 regardless of where the company is headquartered. The practical upshot: identify the domicile first, then the place of use, and never assume your home state's rule travels with you. Two examples make the stakes concrete. A performer who dies domiciled in Indiana carries a 100-year post-mortem right; the same performer domiciled in a state with no post-mortem right may leave heirs with nothing to license, even if the unauthorized poster is sold nationwide. And a company running a coast-to-coast campaign cannot pick the friendliest forum — if the ad reaches California consumers and uses a Californian's likeness, Civil Code §3344 is in play no matter where the company sits. That is why counsel should map the governing law *before* a shoot or a licensing deal closes, not after a demand letter arrives. ## How does this connect to NIL and AI? Two forces are reshaping the state map right now. - **College athletes.** Since 2021, name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals have made the right of publicity a live issue for tens of thousands of students, and states have raced to pass NIL-specific statutes on top of their general publicity laws. California's Fair Pay to Play Act led the way — see [California NIL rights](/guides/nil-rights-california/). - **AI voice and image cloning.** Tennessee's ELVIS Act and New York's §50-f are the leading edge of a wave of statutes aimed at synthetic replicas. We break down the technology and the law in [AI voice cloning and deepfakes](/guides/ai-voice-cloning-deepfakes/). Both trends point the same direction: states are broadening scope, and the gaps between them are widening, not closing. ## The bottom line The right of publicity is not one law — it is fifty, and they disagree in ways that decide cases. If you are a creator, athlete, brand, or the counsel advising them, the workflow is the same: figure out which state's law governs (usually domicile, sometimes place of use), check whether that state protects the living, the dead, or both, confirm the scope covers what was actually used — a face, a voice, a mannerism — and only then assess damages and defenses. For the durational rules that matter most to estates, read [the post-mortem right of publicity](/guides/post-mortem-right-of-publicity/), and use [the right of publicity and NIL hub](/guides/right-of-publicity-nil-guide/) to navigate the rest of this series. Treat this map as a snapshot: statutes are amended, and AI is prompting new ones every year. *This guide is general education, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Right-of-publicity outcomes turn on which state's law applies and on facts that vary case by case — consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction before acting.* ## Frequently asked questions ### Is there a federal right of publicity in the United States? No. As of 2026 there is no general federal right of publicity, so protection is governed entirely by state law — roughly half the states by statute and the rest by common law. Federal law helps only around the edges: Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act can reach false endorsement, and the proposed NO FAKES Act would create a federal right against unauthorized AI voice and image replicas, but it is not yet law. ### Which states have the strongest right of publicity laws? California (Civil Code 3344 and 3344.1), New York (Civil Rights Law 50, 51, and 50-f), Indiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Texas, Florida, Nevada, and Washington are generally considered the strongest. Indiana and Oklahoma protect the dead for 100 years; Tennessee's ELVIS Act now covers AI voice cloning. These states offer broad scope, clear damages, and long post-mortem terms, which is why celebrity estates often incorporate or litigate there. ### Does the right of publicity survive death? It depends entirely on the state. Post-mortem rights exist in states like California (70 years), Indiana and Oklahoma (100 years), Nevada and Texas (50 years), Florida and New York (40 years), and Tennessee (10 years, extendable indefinitely with continued use). New York only added a post-mortem right in 2021. Many states recognize no post-mortem right at all, so the applicable law usually follows the deceased person's domicile at death. ### Which state's law applies if my image is used across state lines? Courts usually apply the law of the state where the person is domiciled, especially for post-mortem claims, though the place of the wrongful use can also matter under choice-of-law rules. For a living person, publication in a strong-statute state like California can trigger that state's protections. Because the analysis is fact-specific and outcome-determinative, cross-border publicity disputes are an area where you should get counsel early.