Denmark's digital replica bill would ban AI voice and likeness clones without consent by 2027

Denmark wants to make it illegal to share a realistic AI clone of your voice or face without your permission, and it wants the rule live on January 1, 2027.

Culture minister Zenia Stampe tabled bill L 49 in the Folketing, Denmark’s parliament, on October 8, 2026, the Danish Ministry of Culture announced. It amends the Copyright Act, covers ordinary people and performers, and makes whoever publishes a fake prove they had consent.

This is Denmark’s second try. A cross-party deal from June 26, 2025 started it, the first bill lapsed when Denmark held a general election, and Stampe took over the ministry in June 2026, CMU reported.

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Now we're stopping digital identity theft and helping artists whose livelihoods are being threatened.

Does Denmark’s deepfake law give you copyright over your own face and voice?

Not technically, even though Music Business Worldwide’s June 2025 headline said Denmark planned to give citizens “copyright ownership” of their face and voice. Copenhagen lawyer Jakob Plesner Mathiasen of Gorrissen Federspiel, who is also a director of IFPI Denmark, wrote on LinkedIn that the new rule “does not constitute a copyright or a related right.” He calls it “a separate protection of personal characteristics” that sits inside the Copyright Act.

The bill has two parts, according to its explanatory notes as quoted by PPC Land:

• Section 73 a protects anyone, foreign nationals included, from having a realistic digital imitation of their appearance, voice or movements made public without consent, whether it was made with AI or a simpler editing tool.
• Section 65 a protects performers. The notes point to streaming services and social media filling up with “more and more tracks that contain digital 1:1 imitations of musicians’ vocals.”

The fake has to be realistic, meaning there’s an obvious risk someone confuses it with the real person. Caricature, satire, parody and criticism stay allowed, unless the fake is misinformation that could seriously endanger someone’s rights, life or property. Cover recordings and live sound-alike bands aren’t the target either.

Denmark’s bill L 49 puts the consent burden on whoever uploads the clone

Bill L 49 targets making a fake available to the public, so the person on the hook is whoever uploads the track or video. They have to prove the imitated person said yes, and even an accidental upload counts, according to the notes.

Breaking the rule wouldn’t be a crime. You’d go to a civil court for damages, compensation for non-economic harm and an order to pull the fake from the platform it sits on. Stampe said “one of the main goals of the bill is to get the tech giants to take down manipulated content quickly.” PPC Land flags one catch: the notes also exclude hosting services as the EU’s Digital Services Act defines them.

The notes say the bill doesn’t change anyone’s duties under the EU AI Act’s transparency rules. Other countries are slower. The NO FAKES Act stalled after Ted Cruz blocked it in the US Senate on September 30, 2026, UK music leaders say their country is “lagging behind”, and in Japan the protection came from a Tokyo court ruling that a voice is a publicity right.

Until a law like this exists where you live, my explainer on protecting your voice from AI covers what works today.

The Folketing still has to vote. If it passes, January 1, 2027 is the day a 1:1 clone of a singer on a Danish feed needs that singer’s yes behind it.