DeepFake videos creation is legal, But you must know this

As of the title, deep fake video creation is legal. You can create and publish deep fake videos legally, but you must know the limitations. If not, you could end up in jail.

Legal status of the deep fake video creation is depending according to your intention.

Why deep fake video creation is legal ?

Even at this time, there are no federal laws introduced in the United States, and almost every country (including the UK, European Union, Japan, and Korea) has not established laws for the creation and distribution.

What are deep fake according to law?

According to the United States and the European Union, creating fake content using AI technology specifically deep learning, of people, things, or places is considered as deepfake content.

On January 31st of this year, the United Kingdom introduced the Online Safety Act to regulate deepfakes.

European union is also planned to proposed AI Act to regulate Deepfake, Most probably this act will be introduced within next months.

in United states only ten states has criminal laws again deep fakes, Other states will introduces laws very soon.

Most of the countries haven’t defined deep fake in their legal system.

However, creating deepfakes is not illegal, but certain misuses (details provided below) can be considered as illegal.

Check the deepfake legal status in your country.

Country	Legal Status of Deep Fake Videos
🇺🇸 United States	No federal laws; Georgia, Hawaii, Texas and Virginia have criminal laws. California and Illinois has laws to protect victims. Minnesota and New York has introduced laws recently
🇬🇧 United Kingdom	January 31st , 2024 pass laws introducing introduced the Online Safety Act
🇪🇺 European Union	No uniform laws; varies by member states. European union has planned introduced laws very soon
🇯🇵 Japan	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇰🇷 South Korea	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇦🇺 Australia	Introduced laws with Online Safety Act 2021. But not criminal laws
🇨🇦 Canada	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇩🇪 Germany	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇫🇷 France	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇮🇳 India	Covers with India’s IT Rules
🇧🇷 Brazil	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇷🇺 Russia	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇨🇳 China	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇿🇦 South Africa	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇸🇪 Sweden	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇳🇴 Norway	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇸🇬 Singapore	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇳🇱 Netherlands	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇹🇷 Turkey	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇲🇽 Mexico	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇮🇹 Italy	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇨🇭 Switzerland	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇵🇱 Poland	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇪🇸 Spain	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇵🇹 Portugal	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇰🇪 Kenya	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇹🇭 Thailand	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇮🇱 Israel	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇮🇩 Indonesia	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇵🇭 Philippines	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇦🇷 Argentina	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇮🇪 Ireland	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇬🇷 Greece	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇨🇱 Chile	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇲🇾 Malaysia	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇨🇴 Colombia	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇨🇿 Czech Republic	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇦🇹 Austria	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇭🇺 Hungary	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇷🇴 Romania	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇻🇳 Vietnam	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇺🇦 Ukraine	No specific laws; monitor updates
🇬🇭 Ghana	No specific laws; monitor updates

Legal vs illegal deep fakes

You need to understand the difference between legal and illegal deepfake creation. In the legal systems of the US and EU, deepfake refers to the creation of fake content using AI technology, particularly deep learning. This includes generating fake content of people, things, or places.

However, generating deepfake videos of people without their permission is only covered by laws.

Legal deep fakes

1. Deepfake public awareness videos

Deepfakes are created to raise awareness of the technology itself, including mentioning the harmfulness of deepfake videos. You can find the YouTube channel named LipSynthesis to get an idea about content like this. This channel demonstrates how deepfake videos can be harmful to society using their own deepfake creations.

2. Fim, TV series or media production

This is the completely legal and best use case of the deep fake technology. Nowadays deepfake technology is commonly use with stunt actors, Also deepfakes can be helpful for some historical documentary etc.

In the near future, deepfake technology can be very useful for historical films, dramas, and documentaries to provide a realistic experience to users. Additionally, deepfake technology will be valuable for biography-related documentaries and films.

Let’s consider films like ‘The Social Network’ (2010) or ‘Jobs (2013) ‘ which depict the life stories of Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. We can notice that the actors don’t really resemble Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. These films would have been even more awesome if there was deepfake technology at that time.

3. Language translation related deep fake

Currently, deepfake technology is commonly used in language translation, which is 100% legal. There are many deepfake-related language translation software options available even in the top online deepfake creators lists.

Consider you are an English YouTube video creator and you need to translate your video for a different language-speaking audience. In this case, these deepfake videos can be helpful to engage a new audience.

Also deepfake are very helpful to signing language translations.

4. training purposes in various fields

Creating deepfakes for training purposes in various fields, such as healthcare, engineering, customer service, etc., is another widely used legal practice of deepfakes. For example, in healthcare, deepfakes are being used to enhance patient education, personalize mental health interventions, facilitate remote consultations, and revolutionize medical training.

Now, deepfakes are legally used for customers and training employees.

5. DeepFake using in journalism

Deepfake video creations can be used in good journalism, but This can be illegal in bad practices,. Deepfakes can illustrate difficult-to-reach stories. However, many argue that deepfakes can have a negative impact on the journalism industry.

However some news agencies have already started using ethical and legal deepfakes in their news reporting.

Creating deepfake videos for entertainment purposes, where your face is used to produce videos, is 100% legal. The intention is not to spread misinformation or fake news; rather, it is solely for entertainment purposes. However, it is important to mention that the content is a deepfake.

Illegal deep fakes

1. Deepfake pornography:

Creating or distributing deepfake videos using a celebrity’s or another person’s face is considered a crime. Recently, many deepfake videos have been released targeting celebrities and popular figures.

Creating pornography or adult-related content using deepfake technology to defame someone can be considered a major crime according to the legal systems of the US, UK, EU, and most other countries.

However all Deepfake related phonographic videos creations are not illegal. Even now, some people are creating deepfake pornography to change their faces because they hesitate to disclose their real identities in adult videos. They use AI-generated beautiful faces for their deepfake adult content, aiming to gain more more views and more money in adult websites.

2. Creating deepfake videos for Defamation

If there is a lack of deepfake laws in the US and other countries, strong defamation laws have already been introduced.

So, if you try to create deepfake videos that harm anyone’s reputation, you are in trouble. Recently, many illegal deepfake videos such as adult and political ones have been released targeting popular figures.

3. Fraud and identity theft

Another commonly used illegal activity is impersonation using deepfake videos. Several incidents have been reported related to financial scams, phishing attacks, or gaining unauthorized access to information using deepfake video creation.

Also, some scammers use deepfake sexual chat services to impersonate individuals and blackmail them.

A recent and significant news event involved a Maldivian minister who was a victim of this kind of deepfake crime.

Summery

• Creating deepfake videos using someone’s face to spread fake news , misinformation
• Use someone’s face to create phonographic or adults videos
• Using faces politicians and celebrities manipulate the ideologies
• Use someone face to intentionally harm to his or her character

If you can generate illegal deepfake videos using high advaned deep fake creator such as Deepface labs or ReplectaX online deepface labs tools. We highly advice to not use these tools for illegal activates.

However, if you use entertainment-based online deepfake creators such as Vidnoz deepfake creator, Reface, etc., you are 100% legally safe.

Legal information and deep fake creation tools.

You are 100% safe if you generate deepfake videos for entertainment purposes with no intention to harm anyone.

According to Deepfake analyzer if your deepfake is not professional and high quality , most probably you will not face any legal issues.

Advanced technologies had limited deep fake creations

Recently released Open AI’s Sora AI doesn’t allow to generate deepfake videos because of these ethical and legal reasons.

However some users have reported that they could create deep fake videos from Sora AI using Jailbreak prompts.

In near future so many text to deep fake video creation tools will be released.

Also GAN based tools such as Draggan AI tools allow users to create deepfake easily.

Not knowing a law is not an excuse. therefore, you must have a clear idea about the deepfake laws that we mentioned above.

Legal actions against deepfake videos

There are very few incidents in the world regarding legal actions taken for harmful deep fake video creation. Most of the time, it is so hard to find the deep fake creator if they publish their deep fake creations online.

Most victims of harmful deepfake creations have complained, but almost zero criminals have been arrested.

However, recently, the creator of a deepfake featuring the popular Indian actress Rashmika Mandanna was arrested and sentenced to 3 years in prison by an Indian court.

In last year in USA , A student was arrested creating deep fake videos targeting girls in his school

However, we can assume that new laws will be introduced, and harmful deepfake creators will be punished in the future.

Deepfake illegal countries

Still, many countries don’t have proper laws related to deepfakes. Most of the time, laws regarding harmful deepfake creations are included in defamation laws. If the primary aim of deepfake creators is to insult someone there are laws about it. However, entertainment-based deepfake creations are not included in these laws.

Defamation laws vary between countries. You can get a clear idea about deepfakes and defamation laws by referring to the above chart.

Conclusion of deepfake laws

Creating or publishing deepfake videos is not illegal. However, if your primary goal in creating a deepfake is to insult someone, it may be covered by defamation laws in your country.

Still, almost every country has not passed laws regarding deepfake video creations, but we can assume it will change in near future.

Creating entertainment-based deepfakes is completely legal. By referring the above legal and illegal lists of deepfake usage you can get idea about the difference of legal and illegal deepfake creations

Also by referring to the above chart, you can get an idea about deepfake laws in each country.