AB 1836: estate consent for digital replicas
California has required estate consent for digital replicas of deceased personalities since 1 January 2025. A working clearance path for legacy-figure content.
The assumption that gets people into trouble with legacy-figure content is simple and wrong: that death ends the permission problem.
California's AB 1836 took effect on 1 January 2025 and requires estate consent for digital replicas of deceased personalities. Not attribution. Not good taste. Consent, from whoever holds the right now. If you are producing a documentary segment, a museum piece, a brand campaign built around a historical figure, or a "what if X saw this today" social format, that requirement sits directly on your production.
This is general information, not legal advice. For a specific figure and a specific use, get counsel.
What the statute actually does
AB 1836 attaches to a category California law already recognised — the deceased personality — and extends it to synthetic replication. The permission has to come from the estate or successor-in-interest.
It landed the same day as its companion, AB 2602, which makes digital-replica clauses in living performers' contracts unenforceable without a specific use description and professional representation. Read together they cover the two ends of the same problem: the living performer who signed something vague, and the dead one who never signed anything. Both are part of a broader move toward treating likeness as a licensable right rather than only a tort.
One thing worth saying out loud rather than paraphrasing from memory: statutes in this area typically carry exemptions for categories like news, commentary and certain expressive uses, and the exact shape of those exemptions decides a lot of real projects. Read the bill text, or have counsel read it, before you rely on an exemption. I am not going to characterise them secondhand.
"Historical figure" is not a safe category
Three assumptions fail regularly here.
"They died a long time ago." Post-mortem publicity rights persist for a defined period after death in the states that recognise them, and that period is set by statute rather than by intuition. Someone who died in the 1980s is a very different proposition from someone who died in the 1880s, and the boundary between them is a number you have to look up. Check rather than eyeball it.
"There is no estate." There is almost always a successor-in-interest, and for commercially significant figures the rights are frequently administered by a company that exists specifically to license them. The absence of surviving family does not mean the absence of a rights holder.
"We're not selling anything." Non-commercial framing helps in some regimes and not others, and the framing that matters is how the use is characterised legally, not how it feels internally. A brand's "tribute" post is an advertisement wearing a different jacket.
A clearance path that works
This is the sequence to run before any generation happens, not after a rough cut exists.
- Fix the identification. Write down exactly who is being replicated and how recognisable the depiction will be. A composite that evokes an era is a different project from a face-accurate replica of a named person. If the answer is "the audience will know exactly who that is," you are doing the second one.
- Establish the jurisdictional set. Where was the person domiciled at death, where does the estate sit, and where will the content be seen? Post-mortem rights are state law and they diverge. This step produces a list, not a single answer.
- Find the rights holder. Estate, successor-in-interest, or the licensing company that administers the name and likeness. For well-known figures this is usually findable in an afternoon. For less-known ones it can be the longest step in the project, which is why it goes early.
- Ask for the specific use, in writing. Not "we'd like to feature X." The medium, the script or scene, the platforms, the territory, the run dates, whether a voice replica is involved, and whether any model or embedding will be retained afterwards. Vague requests get vague answers you cannot rely on.
- Get the grant in writing with the same specificity. Scope, term, territory, whether it is sublicensable, and what happens to the generated material and any trained artefacts at the end. The usage rights vocabulary is the right frame here.
- Handle voice separately. A likeness grant is not a voice grant. Tennessee's ELVIS Act made voice a protected personal right from 1 July 2024, and voice replication has its own statutory footprint. If the piece has the person speaking, that is a second clearance.
- Attach the paperwork to the asset. Consent document, date, described use, model used, and who granted it — stored with the file. This is the part that turns a legal position into something you can actually demonstrate on request.
What clearance does not buy you
An estate grant resolves the consent question. It does not resolve these.
| Obligation | Still applies with consent |
|---|---|
| Synthetic media disclosure to the viewer | Yes. EU AI Act Article 50 deployer duties apply from 2 August 2026 and require deepfake labelling disclosed on first exposure |
| US ad-specific disclosure | Yes, where it applies. New York's synthetic performer disclosure for ads reaching New York consumers took effect 9 June 2026 |
| Platform policy | Yes. Platform rules on realistic synthetic depictions are contractual and stricter than law in places |
| Other jurisdictions' likeness regimes | Yes. Denmark's likeness amendment is drafted to cover every person, not only public figures — see our Denmark write-up for the caveats on its status |
| Copyright in source material | Yes. Consent from an estate does not license the photographs or recordings you built the replica from |
That last row catches more productions than the likeness question does. The estate may control the personality right while a photo agency controls the specific image you used as a reference. Two clearances, two counterparties.
When the answer is to not replicate the person
Sometimes clearance is unavailable, slow, or priced past the budget. The productive move at that point is to change what the piece depicts rather than to soften the depiction and hope.
Things that work: period-accurate settings without a named face, archival material used under whatever licence you actually hold, an on-camera presenter discussing the figure, typographic and illustrative treatments, or a fictional character clearly not intended to be the person. Things that do not work: a "not quite" likeness, an unnamed lookalike, or a voice that is recognisably theirs without their name attached. The near-miss is the shape these statutes were written to catch, and it carries the exposure of the real thing with none of the clearance.
For institutional work where this comes up constantly, our guide for museums covers producing around archival and legacy material, and the copyright and safety guide for creators covers the general output-side risk.
FAQ
Does AB 1836 apply if my company is not in California?
Possibly. Right-of-publicity exposure generally tracks where the person's rights sit and where the audience is, not only where the producer is incorporated. If the estate is Californian or the content runs to a Californian audience, assume it is in scope and check.
How long do post-mortem rights last?
It varies by state, and the duration is set by each state's statute rather than by AB 1836 itself. This is a look-it-up question for the specific figure and the specific state, not a rule of thumb. Do not use "a long time ago" as your test.
Is a documentary exempt?
Statutes in this area typically include exemptions covering news and certain expressive uses, and whether a given piece qualifies turns on the text and how the use is characterised. Documentary framing helps but does not automatically exempt, particularly once promotional cutdowns and sponsored placements enter the picture. This is exactly the question to put to counsel.
What about a deceased person who was never famous?
"Deceased personality" is a defined category, so an ordinary private individual is a different analysis under this statute. That does not make it a safe one. Other regimes are drafted to cover every person rather than public figures only, platform rules on realistic depictions of private individuals are strict, and family objection is a real operational risk independent of the legal position.