Extract from Linda Thompson’s article “Denmark Tackles Deepfakes With Unique Strategy, Treating Personal Identities as Copyrighted Creations”
Denmark aims to make EU history by using copyright law—not privacy rules—to crack down on deepfakes and protect personal likenesses, diverging from the approaches adopted in the U.S. and other nations.
“What’s unusual—and striking—about the Danish approach is that it anchors deepfake regulation in copyright law, which is typically reserved for protecting creative works rather than individuals’ identities,” Kristian Storgaard, a partner in Kromann Reumert’s Aarhus office, said.
Several countries including the U.S., U.K., France, and South Korea have already rolled out laws to crack down on the sharing of deepfakes, or AI-generated, highly realistic imitations of people’s identities. Denmark will soon join them, but it is taking a pioneering legal approach, giving both ordinary people and celebrities control over their own likeness.
Lawyers say the proposed changes mark the first legislative attempt to curb AI-generated deepfakes through copyright law, not just in Europe but globally. The U.S. approach is to criminalize the sharing of non-consensual intimate images—including AI deepfakes—under the TAKE IT DOWN Act, while the EU AI Act focuses on transparency rules. The U.K.’s Online Safety Act makes social media and online platforms legally responsible for protecting users—especially children—from harmful and illegal content.
