Montana HB 513 (2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685): names, voices and visual likenesses

Informational data, not legal advice. Summaries and rules have not been reviewed by a lawyer: always verify official law text for decisions. A suggested guard is intended to address each rule; adding it is not a statement of compliance to that law.

Official text: archive.legmt.gov.

Trust and provenance 1 official source · last verified 4 Oct 2026 · not reviewed by a lawyer · 2 of 2 provisions audit-grade · release 2026.10.05

Where this instrument's data comes from, how current it is, and what has and has not been checked. Each provision below has its own panel.

Official sources: Montana HB 513 (69th Legislature, 2025), 2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685, enrolled bill as filed in the chapter index; section 1 codified in Title 30, chapter 14, MCA; effective 2026-01-01 captured 4 Oct 2026 · last verified 4 Oct 2026 (checked against the captured official document) · not in the weekly watcher's list; checked against the captured document · document hash (SHA-256) e9c8ff6f1405…
Lanes: Binding law — in force 2
Verification: Sources last verified 4 Oct 2026; each provision states how.
Data release: Data release 2026.10.05, data as of 4 Oct 2026, schema 0.3.10.
Legal review: None of the 2 provisions has been reviewed by a lawyer; no TwinEthos rule has been legally reviewed yet. Treat each as research to check against the official text; it is not legal advice. Open questions for counsel on them: 2.
Audit standard: 2 of 2 provisions audit-grade. The audit standard is TwinEthos's own quality bar for provenance, dates, applicability, detectors, fixtures, remediation and licences; it is not a legal review.
Detectors: 2 detectors, all experimental: written from the rule's text and not yet measured for precision on real code, so treat a hit as a lead to verify. Each provision lists its detectors' known limits.
Changes: 2026.10.05 (5 Oct 2026): 2 provisions added
Each data release records which provisions changed; the full list is on Changes.

Binding law — in force

Do not publish a digital voice or visual depiction for commercial use without the individual's consent (Montana HB 513, sec. 1(3)(b))

2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685, sec. 1(3)(b), first part (to the page break) · official text · In force: applies since 1 Jan 2026 · Montana (US-MT)

From 2026-01-01, a person is liable if, without the consent of the individual or the holder of the individual's property rights, it intentionally puts before the public, for commercial use, a computer-generated voice or visual depiction that it actually and specifically knows depicts the individual and was not authorized by the individual or rights holder (2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685, sec. 1(3)(b)). A publisher with an objectively reasonable belief that material was not an unauthorized depiction is not liable for actual damages (sec. 1(5)). Detect ad, product or sales features that clone voices or swap faces with no consent record.

Trust and provenance not reviewed by a lawyer · audit-grade · source verified 4 Oct 2026 · release 2026.10.05

Lane

Binding law — in force In force: applies since 1 Jan 2026

Official source

2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685, sec. 1(3)(b), first part (to the page break) · captured 4 Oct 2026 · anchor hash (SHA-256) 76c14375cf08… · 11 more anchors in the data release

Verification

Quoted text found word for word in the captured official document (4 Oct 2026). Source last verified 4 Oct 2026: checked against the captured official document; not in the weekly watcher's list; checked against the captured document.

Data release

Data release 2026.10.05, data as of 4 Oct 2026, schema 0.3.10.

Legal review

Not reviewed by a lawyer. TwinEthos derived this rule from the official text it cites: treat it as research to check against that text; it is not legal advice. No TwinEthos rule has been legally reviewed yet. Open questions for counsel on this rule: 1.

Audit standard

Audit-grade: meets all 10 checks of the TwinEthos audit standard that apply to it. The audit standard is TwinEthos's own quality bar for provenance, dates, applicability, detectors, fixtures, remediation and licences; it is not a legal review.

Detectors

1 detector (code pattern), experimental: written from the rule's text and not yet measured for precision on real code, so treat a hit as a lead to verify.

Known limits:

Hosted likeness tools called only through a vendor dashboard
Prompt-only likeness ('in the voice of <celebrity>') with a general text-to-speech or image model
Consent may be enforced upstream (account onboarding, talent contracts); the finding asks for the record. Voices or faces of people who licensed them (stock talent) are fine with a record.

Who it applies to

Duty falls on: any person
Any person who intentionally publishes or makes available to the public, for commercial use, a digital voice or visual depiction of an individual (a Montana resident, or domiciled in Montana at death) knowing it is of the individual and unauthorized. Applies from 2026-01-01. Commercial use, intent and knowledge are human determinations.
Not covered:
- To the extent protected by the First Amendment and Mont. Const. art. II, sec. 7: use by a news-gathering organization; in connection with a news report, public affairs report, sports broadcast or account; for comment, criticism, scholarship, satire or parody; a representation of an individual as themself in an audiovisual work unless intended to and does create the false impression of an authentic recording; fleeting or negligible use; an advertisement or commercial announcement for such a work (sec. 1(8))
- Providers of broadband internet access service (sec. 1(11))
Whether it applies depends on facts outside the code; a person has to decide.

The guard to add

Check a recorded commercial-use consent or talent release for the depicted person before a generated or cloned voice or likeness is published to an ad, product, or storefront.

A consent gate on the path from the likeness generator (face swap, voice clone, identity-preserving image model) to every commercial sink: ad-platform creative uploads, product listings and storefront media, public campaign buckets, merchandise publishing. The gate looks up a consent or talent-release record for the person whose face or voice is reproduced, scoped to commercial use, refuses to publish without a live record, and stamps the asset with the release id so it can be traced and pulled later. A public-figure or celebrity filter runs before generation so references to well-known people are blocked unless a release is on file.

Where it goes: 1 application source code, 2 data models, 6 API calls and integrations, 9 AI output handling.

What this provision adds:

Record the consent of the individual or of the holder of the individual's property rights before a depiction is published for commercial use.

Example (Python insightface + boto3), before:

def build_ad_creative(person_id, frame, target_face, source_face):
    out = swapper.get(frame, target_face, source_face, paste_back=True)
    cv2.imwrite('/tmp/ad.png', out)
    s3.upload_file('/tmp/ad.png', 'campaign-public', f'ads/{person_id}.png')

After:

def build_ad_creative(person_id, frame, target_face, source_face):
    release = consents.get(person_id=person_id, scope='commercial')
    if release is None or release.revoked_at:
        raise ConsentRequired('no commercial likeness release for this person')
    out = swapper.get(frame, target_face, source_face, paste_back=True)
    cv2.imwrite('/tmp/ad.png', out)
    s3.upload_file('/tmp/ad.png', 'campaign-public', f'ads/{person_id}.png',
                   ExtraArgs={'Metadata': {'talent_release_id': str(release.id)}})

Control: AI-generated voice or likeness of a real person used on products or in advertising without that person's consent. The same guard addresses 5 items with binding law in 5 jurisdictions. Engineering guidance, not legal advice.

Rule id mt-hb513.digital-depiction-commercial-use-consent · review status: primary source derived

Binding law — in force

Do not make available a tool whose primary purpose is unauthorized digital depictions of an identified person (Montana HB 513, sec. 1(3)(a))

2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685, sec. 1(3)(a) · official text · In force: applies since 1 Jan 2026 · Montana (US-MT)

From 2026-01-01, a person is liable if, without the consent of the individual or the holder of the individual's property rights, it distributes, transmits or otherwise makes available to the public an algorithm, software, tool or other technology, service or device with actual and specific knowledge that its primary purpose is to produce one or more unauthorized digital voice depictions or digital visual depictions of the particular, identified individual for commercial use (2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685, sec. 1(3)(a)). A digital voice or visual depiction is a newly created, computer-generated, highly realistic rendering of an individual's voice or likeness, nearly indistinguishable from the real one, that a reasonable person believes genuine. The rights last for life and 20 years after death. Detect a voice-clone or face-swap tool with no authorization gate.

Trust and provenance not reviewed by a lawyer · audit-grade · source verified 4 Oct 2026 · release 2026.10.05

Lane

Binding law — in force In force: applies since 1 Jan 2026

Official source

2025 Mont. Laws ch. 685, sec. 1(3)(a) · captured 4 Oct 2026 · anchor hash (SHA-256) 8472c57b6845… · 10 more anchors in the data release

Verification

Data release

Data release 2026.10.05, data as of 4 Oct 2026, schema 0.3.10.

Legal review

Audit standard

Detectors

1 detector (code pattern), experimental: written from the rule's text and not yet measured for precision on real code, so treat a hit as a lead to verify.

Known limits:

Authorization enforced at account onboarding outside the module
Hosted cloning APIs whose own verification (e.g. voice captcha) is configured in a vendor console
Liability turns on the tool's intended primary purpose (unauthorized creation of an identified person's likeness) and the distributor's knowledge; general-purpose editors need human judgment.

Who it applies to

Duty falls on: provider, distributor
Persons who distribute, transmit or make available to the public a technology whose primary purpose, to their actual and specific knowledge, is to produce unauthorized digital voice or visual depictions of a particular, identified individual for commercial use, where the individual is a Montana resident or was domiciled in Montana at death. Applies from 2026-01-01. Primary purpose, knowledge and residence are human determinations.
Not covered:
- To the extent protected by the First Amendment and Mont. Const. art. II, sec. 7: use by a news-gathering organization; in connection with a news report, public affairs report, sports broadcast or account; for comment, criticism, scholarship, satire or parody; a representation of an individual as themself in an audiovisual work unless intended to and does create the false impression of an authentic recording; fleeting or negligible use; an advertisement or commercial announcement for such a work (sec. 1(8))
- Providers of broadband internet access service (sec. 1(11))
Whether it applies depends on facts outside the code; a person has to decide.

The guard to add

Gate the clone or swap feature so it reproduces only voices and faces whose owner is verified or licensed, and reject references that target other identifiable people.

An authorization check at the entry point of the likeness tool (the clone, enroll, or swap endpoint), before the reference sample reaches voices.ivc.create, speaker_wav=, inswapper, or a lip-sync or reenactment model. It accepts a reference only when the requester is the verified owner (speaker verification or a spoken voice captcha matched to the sample) or a likeness license or rights-holder record covers that person, and it rejects references that match a celebrity or public-figure blocklist. The authorization id is stored with the created voice or face model so every later generation traces back to it.

Where it goes: 1 application source code, 2 data models, 6 API calls and integrations.

What this provision adds:

Accept authorization from the individual or the holder of their property rights; for a deceased individual the rights pass to executors, heirs, transferees or devisees for 20 years after death.

Example (FastAPI + Coqui XTTS), before:

@app.post('/clone')
async def clone(sample: UploadFile, text: str = Form(...)):
    path = save_upload(sample)
    tts.tts_to_file(text=text, speaker_wav=path, language='en', file_path='out.wav')
    return FileResponse('out.wav')

After:

@app.post('/clone')
async def clone(sample: UploadFile, text: str = Form(...), user=Depends(current_user)):
    path = save_upload(sample)
    if celebrity_blocklist.matches_voice(path):
        raise HTTPException(403, 'reference voice matches a protected public figure')
    owner = voice_ownership.verify(user.id, path)   # spoken captcha + speaker match
    if not owner.verified:
        raise HTTPException(403, 'only your own verified voice can be cloned')
    tts.tts_to_file(text=text, speaker_wav=path, language='en', file_path='out.wav')
    audit.record('voice_clone', user_id=user.id, voice_authorization_id=owner.id)
    return FileResponse('out.wav')

Control: AI tool whose primary purpose is producing an identifiable person's likeness/voice without authorization. The same guard addresses 5 items with binding law in 4 jurisdictions. Engineering guidance, not legal advice.

Rule id mt-hb513.likeness-tool-distribution · review status: primary source derived