New York Synthetic Performer Advertising Law

Facts that control the screening

Review whether a person engaged in dealing in property or services produced or created the advertisement for a commercial purpose and whether the asset meets the enacted definition of a synthetic performer. The definition focuses on a digitally created, reproduced, or modified asset intended to create the impression of a human audiovisual or visual performance when it is not recognizable as an identifiable natural performer.

The enacted disclosure provision applies an actual-knowledge condition to the person producing or creating the advertisement. A checker cannot establish who held that role, what that person knew, or when that knowledge arose.

Disclosure and penalty language

For material within the provision, the enacted text calls for a conspicuous statement in the advertisement that a synthetic performer is present. It states a civil penalty of $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for a subsequent violation.

Those amounts should not be presented as an expected outcome. A violation still depends on the statute's definitions, knowledge requirement, coverage, and exceptions, and the site cannot predict enforcement or case results.

Exceptions and publishing-media provisions

The enacted amendment includes provisions for advertisements or promotional material tied to expressive works, audio advertisements, and uses where AI only translates a human performer. Read the exact conditions rather than treating the category name as enough.

Subdivision 8 says the section does not apply to an advertising medium—including the listed newspaper, magazine, television, streaming, cable, billboard, and transit examples—by which a violating advertisement is published or disseminated. Earlier bill text included written-notice, cure-period, and disclosure-removal clauses, but those clauses are not in enacted S.8420-A or the current codified section.

What to document before relying on an answer

Keep the final advertisement, the source asset, how the asset was generated or modified, whether it resembles an identifiable person, where the advertisement ran, who received notice, and when relevant people learned how the asset was made.

The statute does not replace other publicity, privacy, advertising, or platform rules. A lawyer can review the real asset and distribution facts; this page only points to issues in the enacted text.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• New York General Business Law § 396-b — binding statute
• S.8420-A enacted bill — enacted amendment
• Official announcement confirming the June 9, 2026 effective date — official explanatory source