Who would the Danish deepfake rule protect?

Two groups. The general public would be protected against sharing of realistic, digitally generated imitations of personal characteristics such as appearance and voice without consent. Performing artists would get a separate performance protection covering realistic digital imitations of their performances.

Does the Danish draft ban making deepfakes?

No. The draft targets sharing of realistic imitations without consent and creates a legal basis to demand removal. It does not criminalise creation, and satire and parody remain permitted.

Denmark drafts copyright-based deepfake likeness right

Q: What penalties would apply under the Danish draft?

The Ministry states that breaching the proposed rules would not carry a fine or prison sentence for the people who spread the content. Compensation may be available under ordinary Danish tort law, and platforms can be fined under EU Digital Services Act obligations if they fail to remove flagged content.

By Anthony Guerriero, Founder, The Leveraged Years. Copenhagen. Consultation-stage proposal, opened 7 July 2025. Last verified: 2026-07-25.

To be clear from the first line: Denmark does not yet have a deepfake likeness right. It has a proposal for one. Most countries chasing deepfakes reach for privacy law, criminal law, or a new stand-alone statute. Denmark has drafted something narrower and, for anyone tracking how likeness rights get built, more interesting. Its Ministry of Culture wants to bolt the protection onto the one framework Danes already use to control how their creative work is copied and shared: the Copyright Act, the ophavsretslov. On 7 July 2025 the Ministry published a draft amendment for public consultation, and the framing it chose is the story worth citing. This is the wedge that makes the Danish approach specific: if the bill is enacted, a person's face, body and voice would be handled with copyright-style machinery rather than a bespoke deepfake offence.

One caution up front, because it governs everything below. This is a draft in consultation, not enacted law. Nothing here is binding on anyone yet. Treat every obligation described below as proposed, and every effect as something that would happen only if the Folketing passes the bill.

What is proposed

The instrument is titled Forslag til lov om aendring af lov om ophavsret (Indfoerelse af en praestationsbeskyttelse og beskyttelse mod digitalt genererede efterligninger mv.), which translates as a proposal for an act amending the Copyright Act, introducing a performance protection and protection against digitally generated imitations. It grew out of a broad political agreement reached on 26 June 2025 between the government (the Social Democrats, Venstre and the Moderates) and Danmarksdemokraterne, the Socialist People's Party, the Conservatives, the Red-Green Alliance, the Social Liberals and the Alternative. That cross-party breadth matters for durability, but breadth is not enactment.

Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt put the aim in plain terms in the 26 June announcement:

"Jeg er enormt stolt af, at vi nu sender det utvetydige signal til alle borgere om, at man har ret til egen krop, egen stemme og egne ansigtstraek."

In English: "I am enormously proud that we are now sending the unequivocal signal to all citizens that you have a right to your own body, your own voice and your own facial features." The Ministry then moved the words into procedure. According to the official consultation record on Hoeringsportalen, the draft was published on 7 July 2025 with a consultation deadline of 21 August 2025, and the portal lists a proposed entry-into-force date of 31 March 2026. The Ministry has said it intends to formally introduce the bill in Parliament during the winter of 2025 and 2026.

How a copyright-style likeness right would work

The mechanism is the distinctive part. Rather than write a free-standing "deepfake law," Denmark proposes to insert two new protections into the existing Copyright Act. The Ministry's own fact sheet describes them cleanly:

"1. En generel beskyttelse mod virkelighedsnaere, digitalt genererede efterligninger af personlige kendetegn ... 2. En efterligningsbeskyttelse af udoevende kunstnere."

Rendered in English, that is a general protection against realistic, digitally generated imitations of personal characteristics, plus a copying protection for performing artists. The trigger in both cases is sharing without consent, not the mere act of generation. Both protections, the Ministry writes, are meant to give anyone a clear legal basis to get realistic digital imitations removed from the storage services people use every day, including social media.

Here is the second half of the design that turns a rights statement into a removal tool. The Danish rules are written to activate obligations that already exist under EU law. The fact sheet states the point directly: the rules are primarily meant to trigger the Digital Services Act obligations that require hosting services to act on notices about illegal content. In other words, once the Copyright Act labels a non-consensual realistic imitation as unlawful in Denmark, the DSA notice-and-action machinery does the removal work. That is why the drafters could keep the penalty architecture light, which we return to below.

Who is covered

Two distinct groups, with two different protections.

The first is the general public. Any person in Denmark would be protected against the sharing of realistic, digitally generated imitations of their personal characteristics, which the Ministry lists as things like appearance and voice, distributed without their consent. This is the "right to your own body, voice and face" that the minister described, and it is the broadest part of the proposal.

The second is performing artists. The draft adds a dedicated performance protection so that it would be unlawful to share realistic digital imitations of a performer's artistic performance without consent. This is where the copyright heritage shows most plainly, because performers already hold neighbouring rights under Danish and EU copyright law, and the new protection extends that logic to AI-generated soundalikes and lookalikes of their acts.

One geographic limit is baked in and easy to miss. The Ministry states the rules apply only in Denmark. Content taken down from platforms in Denmark can still appear on the same platforms when accessed from other countries.

Cross-border read: how this compares to US deepfake and right-of-publicity law

For a US audience the closest analogue is the right of publicity, which in the United States is a patchwork of state laws rather than one federal rule. Reading the Danish draft against that patchwork shows how differently the two systems are built.

Danish draft copyright likeness right vs United States right-of-publicity and deepfake law
Feature	Denmark (draft, in consultation)	United States (right of publicity / deepfake)
Legal home	Inside the Copyright Act (ophavsretsloven)	State statutes and common law; no single federal likeness right
Who is protected	Everyone, plus a separate protection for performing artists	Often tied to commercial value of identity; some states broader than others
Trigger	Sharing realistic AI imitation without consent	Commercial use of identity; deepfake statutes vary by state and context
Primary remedy	Removal via EU Digital Services Act notice-and-action; civil compensation possible	Civil damages and injunctions; some criminal deepfake statutes (for example intimate imagery)
Criminal penalty for sharer	None proposed for those who spread the content	Varies; several states criminalise non-consensual sexual deepfakes
Status	Draft, consultation closed 21 August 2025; not enacted	Mix of enacted state law; federal NO FAKES-style proposals still pending

The practical contrast is this. The United States generally frames misappropriation of a persona as a commercial harm and litigates it. Denmark frames it as a personal integrity harm, files it under copyright, and leans on a pre-existing EU takedown pipeline to enforce it. Neither is finished. The Danish text is a draft, and the broad US federal likeness proposals had not been enacted at the time of writing.

What it does NOT do

Because the proposal is easy to overstate, the scope limits deserve their own list. Each point below is drawn from the Ministry's own materials.

It is not law. It is a draft amendment that went to consultation on 7 July 2025. It had not been passed by the Folketing.
It does not criminalise the individuals who share the content. The fact sheet is explicit that breaching the proposed rules would not carry a fine or prison sentence for those who spread the material.
It does not ban satire or parody. The Ministry states that satirical depictions remain possible, and the rules must stay consistent with EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights protection of free expression.
It does not reach beyond Denmark. The rules apply only in Denmark, so content removed domestically can still surface on the same platforms abroad.
It does not stop generation. The trigger is unauthorised sharing, not the creation of an imitation.
It is not yet cleared with Brussels. The scheme must be notified to the European Commission before the bill is introduced.

On enforcement, the light-touch design is deliberate. As the fact sheet puts it:

"Overtraedelse af de foreslaaede regler vil ikke medfoere boede- eller faengselsstraf for de personer, der spreder indholdet."

That reads in English as: breach of the proposed rules will not lead to a fine or imprisonment for the persons who spread the content. Compensation may be available under ordinary Danish tort rules, and the real financial pressure sits on platforms, which can be fined under the Digital Services Act if they ignore a valid removal notice.

Key Facts

Instrument: Draft act amending the Danish Copyright Act, "Forslag til lov om aendring af lov om ophavsret (Indfoerelse af en praestationsbeskyttelse og beskyttelse mod digitalt genererede efterligninger mv.)" (Hoeringsportalen hearing 70269).
Issuer: Kulturministeriet (Danish Ministry of Culture), Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt; based on a cross-party agreement of 26 June 2025.
Status: Draft in public consultation. Published 7 July 2025; consultation deadline 21 August 2025. Not enacted.
Proposed effective date: 31 March 2026, per the official consultation record. Subject to passage and EU notification.
Who is covered: The general public against non-consensual realistic AI imitations of personal characteristics, plus a separate performance protection for performing artists.
Consequence: No fine or prison for those who share; removal via EU Digital Services Act notice-and-action; possible civil compensation; platform fines under the DSA.

Frequently asked questions

Is Denmark's deepfake likeness right now law?

No. It is a draft amendment to the Copyright Act. The Ministry of Culture published it for consultation on 7 July 2025 with a deadline of 21 August 2025, and the consultation record lists a proposed entry-into-force date of 31 March 2026. Parliament had not passed it at the time of writing.

Who would the Danish rule protect?

Everyone in Denmark against non-consensual sharing of realistic digital imitations of their appearance and voice, plus performing artists through a separate performance protection covering imitations of their performances.

Does the draft ban making deepfakes?

No. It targets sharing realistic imitations without consent and creates a basis to demand removal. It does not criminalise creation, and satire and parody stay legal.

What happens to someone who shares a banned imitation?

Under the draft there is no fine or prison for the sharer. Compensation may be possible under ordinary Danish tort law, and platforms face fines under the EU Digital Services Act if they fail to remove flagged content.