# Three Deepfake Laws Hit CTV in 54 Days. No Federal Floor.
> By August 2, three different deepfake regimes will be live for national CTV advertisers: New York's synthetic-performer disclosure, Washington's expanded right of publicity, and California's revised AI Transparency Act. The IAB's...
- Publication: The State of Streaming
- Section: Policy & Regulation
- Published: 2026-05-03T00:00:00.000Z
- Byline: The State of Streaming Staff
- Canonical URL: https://thestateofstreaming.com/policy-regulation/2026/05/deepfake-ai-state-law-patchwork-q2-2026/
- Read time: 6 min
## Summary
Three deepfake regimes go live for CTV advertisers in 54 days — NY June 9, WA June 11, CA Aug. 2 — with no federal floor and only the IAB's January framework as buyer-side guidance. XR Extreme Reach is the only ad-stack vendor that has shipped tooling for synthetic-performer compliance.

## Key facts

- Three state deepfake regimes go live for national CTV advertisers inside 54 days starting June 9: New York's synthetic-performer disclosure ($1,000 first / $5,000 each subsequent violation), Washington's forged-digital-likeness expansion of the Personality Rights Act ($3,000 plus damages), and California's AI Transparency Act covered-provider duties (operative August 2 after AB 853's October amendment).
- Ballotpedia counted 15 deepfake bills enacted across the states in the first quarter of 2026, all additional coverage in the 47 states that already had something on the books; only Alaska, Missouri, and Ohio remain holdouts.
- The federal NO FAKES Act, reintroduced more than a year ago by Sens. Coons, Blackburn, Tillis, and Klobuchar, has not advanced; the Trump executive order signed the same day Hochul signed New York's law has produced a DOJ litigation task force but no actual preemption.
- XR Extreme Reach announced AI-performer payment tooling on April 28, the only ad-stack vendor with a shipped operational answer to the synthetic-performer compliance question; XR claims its platform is used by 80 percent of the world's top advertisers.


## Why it matters

Every CTV ad-buying organization needs a synthetic-performer compliance protocol by [June 9](https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A08887&term=2025&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y), the [IAB's January 15 framework](https://www.iab.com/news/iab-releases-industrys-first-ai-transparency-and-disclosure-framework-to-guide-responsible-advertising-in-a-generative-ai-landscape/) is the working template, and the [DSP/measurement stack hasn't built it](https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance). The federal vacuum is the patchwork's cause, not its accident.


## What to watch

- Whether the FTC publishes the preemption-policy statement [Trump's December 11 EO](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/eliminating-state-law-obstruction-of-national-artificial-intelligence-policy/) ordered within 90 days; the deadline ran in March with no public release.
- Whether the New York attorney general publishes guidance defining 'conspicuous' before [June 9](https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A08887&term=2025&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y); the statute is silent.
- Whether DOJ's AI Litigation Task Force names [NY GBL §396-b](https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A08887&term=2025&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y) or [WA SB 5886](https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5886&Year=2025&Initiative=false) as a target before either takes effect.
- Whether any major DSP, SSP, or measurement vendor besides [XR Extreme Reach](https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance) ships synthetic-performer compliance tooling before [August 2](https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/), when the [EU AI Act Article 50](https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/) and [California's revised SB 942](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB942) operative date both land.

## Article
By June 9, every CTV advertiser running national creative has to know whether the spots in its trafficking queue contain a "synthetic performer." [New York's General Business Law §396-b](https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A08887&term=2025&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y), signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in December, says so. A first violation costs $1,000. Every one after that costs $5,000. Two days later, [Washington's SB 5886](https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5886&Year=2025&Initiative=false) folds "forged digital likeness" into the state's Personality Rights Act, doubles the civil penalty to $3,000, and adds noneconomic damages to the recovery menu. Fifty-four days after that, on August 2, [California's revised AI Transparency Act](https://www.troutmanprivacy.com/2025/10/california-ai-transparency-act-amendments-signed-into-law/) becomes operative at $5,000 per violation, per day. The [EU AI Act's Article 50 deepfake-disclosure obligation](https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/) goes live across Europe on the same August 2 date.

That is the compliance window national CTV ad-buying organizations are now five weeks from. Most have not yet built the protocol that answers it.

## A 54-day compliance window most buyers haven't seen yet

The patchwork itself is not new. The stack-up is. [Tennessee's ELVIS Act](https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/113/Bill/HB2091.pdf), signed by Gov. Bill Lee in March 2024, was the first state law to extend right-of-publicity protection to AI voice clones; it took effect that July. [Ballotpedia counted 15 more deepfake bills enacted across the states in the first quarter of 2026 alone](https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/04/03/15-deepfake-bills-enacted-so-far-this-year-number-of-states-with-deepfake-laws-remains-the-same/), every one of them additional coverage in a state that already had something on the books. Forty-seven states have a deepfake statute; only Alaska, Missouri, and Ohio remain holdouts. California alone has enacted 21 since 2019.

What changes this quarter is that the enforceable mass crosses a threshold for ad buyers specifically. Three of the regimes activating across the next 54 days are written for commercial advertising, and three different definitions of the regulated thing now apply to the same national CTV spot:

- **New York** regulates a "synthetic performer," a digitally created human likeness "not recognizable as any identifiable natural performer," with disclosure triggered on advertisers' "actual knowledge."
- **Washington** regulates a "forged digital likeness" of an identifiable individual that is "indistinguishable from a genuine" recording and "likely to deceive a reasonable person," with no celebrity threshold and no commercial-value test.
- **California** regulates "covered providers" (generative AI platforms with more than 1 million California users) and their licensees: a free public AI-detection tool, latent provenance metadata, and per-day stacking of civil penalties.

A national CTV campaign featuring an AI-generated likeness can plausibly trigger all three. The disclosures each requires aren't the same. The advertiser's knowledge standard isn't the same. The penalty math isn't the same. And per [Cooley LLP's January 29 analysis](https://www.cooley.com/news/insight/2026/2026-01-29-new-york-enacts-synthetic-performer-disclosure-law-for-advertisements-including-those-using-generative-ai), New York's "conspicuously" is statutorily undefined. The working answer to "what does compliant disclosure look like?" is a question the New York attorney general will resolve after enforcement begins, not before.

## Why the federal vacuum is the patchwork's cause

National buyers face this lift because the federal floor never set. The [NO FAKES Act of 2025](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1367), reintroduced more than a year ago by Sens. Chris Coons, Marsha Blackburn, Thom Tillis, and Amy Klobuchar with backing from SAG-AFTRA, the major labels, OpenAI, Disney, and YouTube, has not advanced out of committee. The same December 11 day Hochul signed New York's law, [President Trump signed an executive order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/eliminating-state-law-obstruction-of-national-artificial-intelligence-policy/) titled "Eliminating State Law Obstruction of National Artificial Intelligence Policy," establishing a DOJ AI Litigation Task Force, ordering an FTC preemption-policy statement within 90 days, and conditioning $42 billion in BEAD broadband funding on the repeal of state AI laws deemed onerous.

The 90-day deadline ran in March. As of this writing, the FTC has not published the statement. The DOJ task force has not filed any litigation challenging New York's law, Washington's, or California's. [Davis+Gilbert's read](https://www.dglaw.com/ai-legal-updates-synthetic-performer-transparency-state-federal-conflict/), which has held up since January, is that NY GBL §396-b "may very well survive the Executive Order's attempt at preemption, at least for now." The state laws are in force regardless of how the federal preemption fight resolves, because the dates on the statute books arrive before the litigation does.

That is the structural fact buyers have to plan around. Not the eventual outcome of the preemption fight. The interim, in which the patchwork *is* the regulatory regime.

## The IAB framework is the de facto backstop because nothing else shipped

The industry's only published compliance scaffold for the synthetic-performer question landed [January 15](https://www.iab.com/news/iab-releases-industrys-first-ai-transparency-and-disclosure-framework-to-guide-responsible-advertising-in-a-generative-ai-landscape/). The IAB's AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework uses what the bureau calls a "risk-based, materiality-driven" approach: disclosure required only when AI "materially affects authenticity, identity, or representation in ways that could mislead consumers." Two layers, consumer-facing labels (text, watermarks, hover/tap elements) plus machine-readable metadata via [C2PA](https://c2pa.org/). "We must get transparency and disclosure right," IAB CEO David Cohen said in the framework's release, "or we risk losing the trust that underpins the entire value exchange."

The framework has no safe-harbor status under any state law. It is voluntary. It is also the only thing of its kind in market. No competing framework from the ANA, the 4A's, or IAB Tech Lab has shipped, and the trade pubs are already cataloging the operational gaps. In an [interview with AdExchanger published February 9](https://www.adexchanger.com/ai/iabs-new-ai-regulations-give-advertisers-a-starting-point-but-plenty-of-questions-remain/), IAB VP of AI Caroline Gigerich described the pre-framework state of advertiser AI disclosure as "a free-for-all of 'maybe we label it, maybe we don't.'" Gigerich also told AdExchanger that "three different people could have three different perspectives" on what counts as material AI manipulation, the kind of judgment call a "materiality-driven" framework hands to brand-side counsel and does not resolve in advance.

That is the framework brands are about to test against three statutory texts that mean different things by "synthetic," "forged," and "covered." It is the working answer because it is the only answer.

## XR is the only ad-stack vendor that's shipped

The infrastructure question for buyers is narrower: who pays the AI performer, who tracks the rights, who attaches the disclosure metadata to a creative asset before it enters a DSP's auction. As of last week, exactly one ad-tech company has shipped tooling specifically for the synthetic-performer compliance regime. [XR Extreme Reach announced on April 28](https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance), via reporting in StreamTV Insider, an expansion of its talent-payment platform to handle "AI-enabled talent": both "Digital Replicas" tied to real performers and the "Synthetic Performers" New York's law regulates.

"AI is going to fundamentally change how celebrities and synthetic talent are portrayed in advertising," XR Pay Managing Director Tim Hale told StreamTV Insider. XR CMO Graham McKenna told the publication the expansion was "to cover what we're calling AI-enabled talent." The platform routes payments to performers, to estates, or, when the performer is fully synthetic, to the SAG-AFTRA Pension and Health funds, per the union's [2025 Commercials Contract](https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance). That contract states synthetic performers "generally may only be used in commercials that also feature at least one human principal performer" and bars producers from using one "for the purpose of economic advantage over human performers." XR claims its platform reaches 80 percent of the world's top advertisers.

That is the entire shipped buyer-side compliance answer. No major DSP, not [The Trade Desk](/companies/the-trade-desk/), not Yahoo DSP, not Google's DV360, has announced an equivalent. No major SSP has. No major measurement vendor has. The IAB framework names C2PA as the back-end metadata standard; whether C2PA-tagged provenance moves cleanly through the bidstream and arrives intact at a CTV ad server is, as of this week, an open architectural question. The synthetic-performer compliance pipeline both NY and CA implicitly require — generation tool watermarks the asset, trafficker carries the metadata, DSP and SSP preserve it, publisher renders the consumer-visible cue — does not work end-to-end for any major buyer's stack today.

## What June 9 actually triggers

The trade-press read on the patchwork has been steady for two quarters: brace for compliance, watch for federal preemption, the IAB framework is the working template. What changes on June 9 is that brace becomes enforce. The state laws are not the regime brand-side counsel asked for. They are the regime brand-side counsel got, because Congress and the executive branch did not deliver an alternative.

Three things are worth calendaring before then. The New York attorney general has yet to publish "conspicuous"-defining guidance; without it, the IAB framework's two-layer model is the working interpretation by default. The FTC's preemption-policy statement is overdue, and DOJ's litigation task force has named no target. And no DSP, SSP, or measurement vendor besides XR has shipped synthetic-performer compliance tooling — leaving national buyers with two months to run their NY-, WA-, CA-, and EU-touching campaigns through procurement spreadsheets and vendor questionnaires before the August 2 EU and California double-cliff lands.

## Entities

- Companies: State of New York, State of California, State of Washington, State of Tennessee, IAB, C2PA, SAG-AFTRA, XR Extreme Reach, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice
- People: Kathy Hochul, Bob Ferguson, Gavin Newsom, Bill Lee, Donald Trump, David Cohen, Caroline Gigerich, Graham McKenna, Tim Hale, Chris Coons, Marsha Blackburn, Thom Tillis, Amy Klobuchar
- Products: NY General Business Law §396-b, California AI Transparency Act, Washington Personality Rights Act, Tennessee ELVIS Act, IAB AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework, C2PA Content Credentials, EU AI Act Article 50, NO FAKES Act


## Tags

- AI-regulation
- deepfakes
- synthetic-performers
- state-AI-laws
- federal-preemption
- IAB-framework
- SAG-AFTRA
- policy-regulation


## Sourced claims

- New York General Business Law §396-b's synthetic-performer disclosure provision takes effect June 9, 2026, the 180th day after Governor Kathy Hochul signed Chapter 617 of 2025. — NY Assembly Bill A8887-B (chaptered text): https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A08887&term=2025&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y
- NY GBL §396-b imposes a $1,000 civil penalty for the first violation and $5,000 for each subsequent violation. — NY Assembly Bill A8887-B (chaptered text): https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A08887&term=2025&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y
- NY GBL §396-b's disclosure obligation applies only where the advertiser has 'actual knowledge' a synthetic performer is in the ad. — NY Assembly Bill A8887-B (chaptered text): https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A08887&term=2025&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y
- NY GBL §396-b exempts audio-only advertisements and ads where AI is used solely for language translation of a human performer. — NY Assembly Bill A8887-B (chaptered text): https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A08887&term=2025&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y
- Washington Governor Bob Ferguson signed SB 5886 on March 16, 2026, as Chapter 69 of the 2026 Laws. — Washington Legislature, SB 5886 bill summary: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5886&Year=2025&Initiative=false
- Washington SB 5886 takes effect June 11, 2026. — Washington Legislature, SB 5886 bill summary: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5886&Year=2025&Initiative=false
- Washington SB 5886 doubles the personality-rights civil penalty from $1,500 to $3,000 and adds noneconomic damages and attorney's fees recovery. — Cooley LLP analysis, April 6, 2026: https://www.cooley.com/news/insight/2026/2026-04-06-washington-state-expands-personality-rights-law-to-cover-ai-generated-deepfakes
- Washington SB 5886 covers all 'actual and identifiable' individuals, not limited to celebrities or to persons whose identity has commercial value. — Cooley LLP analysis, April 6, 2026: https://www.cooley.com/news/insight/2026/2026-04-06-washington-state-expands-personality-rights-law-to-cover-ai-generated-deepfakes
- Washington has two distinct deepfake laws: HB 1205, the criminal forged-digital-likeness statute, took effect July 27, 2025; SB 5886, the civil personality-rights expansion, takes effect June 11, 2026. — Crowell & Moring client alert: https://www.crowell.com/en/insights/client-alerts/forged-faces-real-liability-deepfake-laws-take-effect-in-washington-state-and-pennsylvania
- California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 853 on October 13, 2025, extending the operative date of the California AI Transparency Act from January 1, 2026 to August 2, 2026, to align with the EU AI Act. — Troutman Pepper Locke alert, October 28, 2025: https://www.troutmanprivacy.com/2025/10/california-ai-transparency-act-amendments-signed-into-law/
- California SB 942 imposes a $5,000 per-violation civil penalty and treats each day in violation as a discrete violation. — California SB 942 (statute text): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB942
- California SB 942 covers generative AI providers with more than 1 million monthly visitors or users that are publicly accessible within California. — California SB 942 (statute text): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB942
- California SB 942 requires covered providers to make available a free AI detection tool that lets users assess whether content was created or altered by the provider's GenAI system. — California SB 942 (statute text): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB942
- Tennessee's ELVIS Act, signed by Governor Bill Lee on March 21, 2024, was the first state law to extend right-of-publicity protection to AI voice clones; it took effect July 1, 2024. — Tennessee HB 2091 (chaptered): https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/113/Bill/HB2091.pdf
- Ballotpedia counted 15 deepfake bills enacted across the states in the first quarter of 2026. — Ballotpedia News, April 3, 2026: https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/04/03/15-deepfake-bills-enacted-so-far-this-year-number-of-states-with-deepfake-laws-remains-the-same/
- Forty-seven states have adopted some form of deepfake legislation since 2019; Alaska, Missouri, and Ohio remain holdouts. — Ballotpedia News, April 3, 2026: https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/04/03/15-deepfake-bills-enacted-so-far-this-year-number-of-states-with-deepfake-laws-remains-the-same/
- California has enacted the most deepfake-related laws since 2019, with 21 bills. — Ballotpedia News, April 3, 2026: https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/04/03/15-deepfake-bills-enacted-so-far-this-year-number-of-states-with-deepfake-laws-remains-the-same/
- The IAB released its AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework on January 15, 2026, structured as a two-layer model pairing consumer-facing labels with C2PA-based machine-readable metadata. — IAB press release, January 15, 2026: https://www.iab.com/news/iab-releases-industrys-first-ai-transparency-and-disclosure-framework-to-guide-responsible-advertising-in-a-generative-ai-landscape/
- The IAB Framework uses a risk-based, materiality-driven approach: disclosure is required only when AI materially affects authenticity, identity, or representation. — IAB press release, January 15, 2026: https://www.iab.com/news/iab-releases-industrys-first-ai-transparency-and-disclosure-framework-to-guide-responsible-advertising-in-a-generative-ai-landscape/
- IAB CEO David Cohen said: 'We must get transparency and disclosure right, or we risk losing the trust that underpins the entire value exchange.' — IAB press release, January 15, 2026: https://www.iab.com/news/iab-releases-industrys-first-ai-transparency-and-disclosure-framework-to-guide-responsible-advertising-in-a-generative-ai-landscape/
- President Trump signed an executive order on December 11, 2025 directing the DOJ to challenge state AI laws and tasking the FTC with a 90-day policy statement on FTC Act preemption of state AI laws. — White House executive order, December 11, 2025: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/eliminating-state-law-obstruction-of-national-artificial-intelligence-policy/
- The Trump executive order conditioned $42 billion in BEAD broadband funding on the repeal of state AI regulations deemed onerous. — Mayer Brown analysis: https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/insights/publications/2025/12/president-trump-issues-executive-order-on-ensuring-a-national-policy-framework-for-artificial-intelligence
- The NO FAKES Act of 2025 (S.1367 / H.R.2794) was reintroduced April 9, 2025, by Sens. Coons, Blackburn, Tillis, and Klobuchar; the bill remains pending in committee with no advancement as of May 2026. — Congress.gov, S.1367: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1367
- Davis+Gilbert assessed that NY GBL §396-b 'may very well survive the Executive Order's attempt at preemption, at least for now.' — Davis+Gilbert legal update: https://www.dglaw.com/ai-legal-updates-synthetic-performer-transparency-state-federal-conflict/
- XR Extreme Reach announced an expansion of its talent-payment platform to support AI-generated performers in advertising on April 28, 2026. — StreamTV Insider (Bevin Fletcher), April 28, 2026: https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance
- XR claims its platform is used by 80 percent of the world's top advertisers. — StreamTV Insider (Bevin Fletcher), April 28, 2026: https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance
- XR Managing Director Tim Hale told StreamTV Insider: 'AI is going to fundamentally change how celebrities and synthetic talent are portrayed in advertising.' — StreamTV Insider (Bevin Fletcher), April 28, 2026: https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance
- XR CMO Graham McKenna told StreamTV Insider XR's expansion is 'to cover what we're calling AI-enabled talent.' — StreamTV Insider (Bevin Fletcher), April 28, 2026: https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance
- The 2025 SAG-AFTRA Commercials Contract states that synthetic performers 'generally may only be used in commercials that also feature at least one human principal performer' and bars producers from using a synthetic performer 'for the purpose of economic advantage over human performers.' — StreamTV Insider (Bevin Fletcher), April 28, 2026 (quoting SAG-AFTRA contract language): https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/ai-performers-enter-ads-xr-helps-track-rights-payment-compliance
- IAB VP of AI Caroline Gigerich described the pre-framework state of advertiser AI disclosure to AdExchanger as 'a free-for-all of "maybe we label it, maybe we don\'t."' — AdExchanger (Joanna Gerber), February 9, 2026: https://www.adexchanger.com/ai/iabs-new-ai-regulations-give-advertisers-a-starting-point-but-plenty-of-questions-remain/
- EU AI Act Article 50, the deepfake-disclosure obligation on deployers of generative AI systems, becomes enforceable across the EU on August 2, 2026. — EU AI Act, Article 50: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/

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