What is a deepfake?
A deepfake is synthetic media, video, image or audio, where AI puts a real person's face or voice into something they never did or said. For anyone who represents talent, that is the whole problem in one word: a convincing fake of a client, made without consent, spreading before anyone signed off on it.
How a deepfake is made
A model is trained on real footage, photos or voice of a person, then it either generates new media of them from scratch or swaps their face or voice onto existing footage. The first kind invents a scene that never happened. The second drops your client into someone else's video. Both used to need a specialist and a powerful computer. Now a phone app and a few minutes do a passable job, which is why the volume keeps climbing.
The kinds that actually hurt talent
Four do the real damage. Fake endorsements and scam ads use a trusted face to sell a fraud and take money from fans. Impersonation accounts pose as the person and speak for them. Non-consensual intimate deepfakes are the most harmful and the most urgent to remove. And unlicensed AI performances, a cloned voice on a track or in an ad, take income that should have been a paid deal.
Why it matters to whoever represents them
The law is catching up. The EU AI Act now requires deepfakes to be labelled as AI, and right-of-publicity law protects a person's likeness and voice. But a labelling rule does not find the fake, and a right you cannot prove was violated is hard to enforce. So the practical job is the same as ever: catch it, confirm it, and preserve proof that a specific fake existed at a specific time. That is what makes the law usable.
Common questions
Is every AI edit a deepfake?
No. Colour grading, cleanup and ordinary effects are not deepfakes. The line is impersonation: media built to look like a real person doing or saying something they did not.
Are deepfakes illegal?
It depends on the use and the country. Fraud, defamation, non-consensual intimate content and unlicensed commercial use of a likeness are already actionable in many places, and new AI-specific rules are arriving. The deepfake is a tool; the harm and the jurisdiction decide the claim.
Can a deepfake be detected?
Often, yes, with a mix of identity matching and AI-detection models plus a human check. No detector is perfect and the fakes keep improving, which is why detection is paired with fast, documented evidence.
Sources
Primary legislation and authoritative references. Laws change; confirm the current text and its application with qualified counsel.
General information, not legal advice. Likeness and image rights vary by country. Confirm specifics with qualified counsel.