New York voided the same replica clause California did

The figure or the record

New York's Senate Bill S.7676-B, sponsored by Senator Jessica Ramos with Assemblymember Helene Weinstein carrying the companion bill, passed both chambers unanimously on 6 and 7 June 2024 and was delivered to the Governor on 2 December 2024. Governor Kathy Hochul signed it on 13 December 2024 as Chapter 581 of the Laws of 2024. The enacted text adds a new Section 5-302 to the General Obligations Law and, by its own final section, applies from 1 January 2025 to contracts entered into or modified on or after that date, again separating signing from application.

What the documents establish

Section 5-302 voids, as against public policy, a contract provision that lets a digital replica of an individual's voice or likeness stand in for work they would otherwise have performed in person, when that provision also fails to give a reasonably specific description of the intended use and was not negotiated either by counsel who states the licensing terms clearly in a separately signed writing, or by a labor union whose collective agreement expressly addresses digital-replica uses. The statute defines a digital replica as a simulation close enough that a layperson could not readily tell it apart from the person's authentic voice or likeness. SAG-AFTRA's own statement after the June 2024 legislative passage frames the bill's purpose as stopping replica rights being 'buried within the fine print' of standard contracts.

Scope and caveats

The New York and California texts are close to identical in structure, both voiding an under-negotiated clause rather than banning replica use outright, but they sit in different codes, General Obligations Law in New York against Labor Code in California, and neither statute reaches contracts formed under the other state's law. Neither law creates a standalone cause of action for unauthorised replica use by a stranger to the contract; both operate only on the enforceability of a specific contractual provision between the parties who signed it.

What to watch

Editorially, the useful comparison is whether contracts drafted for vertical-drama productions after 1 January 2025 converge on the same 'reasonably specific description' language both states now require, since a template built for one state's compliance would likely satisfy the other's nearly identical test as well.

• Does the contract at issue predate 1 January 2025, and if so, was it modified after that date in a way that triggers the new rule?
• Is the replica clause's description of intended use specific enough to survive scrutiny under either state's identical reasonable-specificity test?
• Which chamber and date should be cited for New York's law: legislative passage in June 2024, or the Governor's signature in December 2024?

New York's six-month gap between unanimous passage and gubernatorial signature is itself a reminder that a bill's headline passage date and its enactment date are not interchangeable when a contract's compliance obligations turn on the latter.