Denmark would fight against deepfakes by amending its copyright act

The Danish Government announced in the summer of 2025 that it would adopt a new amendment to its Copyright Act, according to which the likeness of an individual, typically the face, would be protected by copyright. The proposal aiming to grant sufficient personality right protection against deepfakes may already come into effect this winter. The Danish culture minister stated that under their EU presidency, which ends in December 2025, they will emphasise the need for effective legal protection against deepfakes in the EU.

Deepfake means any kind of plagiarism of a person: it is a form of digital manipulation in which images or voices different from reality are produced using AI technology, most commonly in order to achieve a certain intended effect. From a personality rights perspective, the problems with deepfakes arise when the person whose image was plagiarised does not consent to that use of his/her image. Personality rights, such as the right to the protection of one’s image or voice, are derived from human dignity and therefore enjoy legal protection. However, most legislations do not grant sufficient protection against deepfakes, although one’s personality rights can be infringed with a manipulated image created without his/her consent in the same way as the non-consensual use of a person’s image.

Currently, EU law can only partially remedy the problem outlined above, mainly through the content removal mechanism of the Digital Services Act, but it is not sufficient to effectively protect personal rights. Content removal can only be requested after the infringement has occurred and does not in itself protect against the unlawful publication of an image. Furthermore, user experience shows that large platform providers (e.g., Google, Meta, TikTok, etc.) often do not or not in due time comply with content removal requests.

Experts say the Danish proposal would provide much better conditions to enforce personality rights in the case of their infringement committed with deepfakes. That is because it would grant copyright protection for human likeness; therefore, anyone would be able to claim intellectual property rights in case of unlawful use.

However, many legal experts and critics argue that the Danish way is not as good as it seems, as it can commodify personality rights. Traditionally, copyright protects the human intellect’s original creations and provides an economic framework to help artists/inventors to sell their creative products or otherwise benefit from their creations. Once the face or the voice would be subject to copyright, all of a sudden, people could buy and sell each other’s likeness, which would be a serious threat to human dignity. Experts say that the long-term solution in connection with deepfakes would be a combination of several tools: mandatory indication of the use of deepfake technology on such images, an extensive framework that serves redistribution of value to all who have contributed to the common knowledge and information, and effective legal enforcement tools against personality right infringements.