New documentary studio Unfeatured Films to utilize AI for reviving archival footage, New York Times sues AI startup Perplexity
California retreats on AI safety bills amid tech industry threats to quit state
California’s governor has vetoed key artificial intelligence legislation aimed at protecting children, after tech firms lobbied heavily and warned of relocations that could cripple the state economy. Gavin Newsom rejected AB 1064, which would have compelled companion chatbot operators to block systems “foreseeably capable” of urging minors towards self-harm. In his veto message, he backed the intent but cautioned that it risked denying young people access to vital AI learning tools. Child safety campaigners, who steered the bill through the legislature, decried the outcome as a victory for lobbyists from Meta, Google, and OpenAI, now bolstering ties with the Trump administration and funding anti-regulation groups. They vow to pursue a ballot initiative.
Denmark plans to give citizens copyright over their own likeness to fight deepfakes
Denmark is set to become one of the first countries to grant its citizens copyright over their own likeness, aiming to shield ordinary Danes, as well as performers and artists, from the unauthorised use of deepfakes. A bill, expected to pass early next year, would outlaw the sharing of AI-generated content that imitates a person’s appearance or voice without consent, allowing individuals to demand the removal of such material from online platforms. The proposed law would protect personal characteristics from digital manipulation, while still permitting parodies and satire, though the boundaries of these exceptions remain unclear.
Officials and experts have described the legislation as one of the most comprehensive government responses yet to the growing threat of misinformation fuelled by deepfakes. Elsewhere, measures tackling deepfake abuse are gaining ground. U.S. President Donald Trump signed bipartisan legislation in May making it illegal to knowingly publish intimate deepfake images without consent, while South Korea introduced tougher penalties and regulations to combat deepfake pornography last year. In Copenhagen, Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt said the bill enjoyed strong cross-party support, reflecting concerns that digital manipulations undermine trust in reality and spread falsehoods online.
California strengthens Right of Publicity law to include digital replicas
California has expanded its Right of Publicity law to provide stronger protections against the unauthorised use of a person’s identity, including digital replicas. On 10 October 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 683, amending California Civil Code Section 3344 to introduce injunctive relief and extend liability to cover AI-generated likenesses. The law applies to anyone who knowingly uses another’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness without prior consent for commercial purposes. Notably, the definition of “photograph” now includes any image or video in which a person is clearly identifiable, and liabilities explicitly cover “digital replicas,” reflecting AI’s role in creating synthetic voices and images. Exceptions remain for uses connected to news, sports, public affairs, or political campaigns. Media owners and employees are shielded from liability unless they have actual knowledge of unauthorised uses. The statute provides for $750 statutory damages or compensation for actual losses, along with punitive damages and legal costs. The introduction of injunctive relief means courts can now swiftly order the removal or cessation of unauthorised usage, requiring compliance within two business days.
Immortality startup Eternos rebrands as Uare.ai raises $10.3m to build personal AI that replicates your likeness
Robert LoCascio, who stepped down as CEO of LivePerson after nearly 30 years at the helm, has launched a bold new venture aiming to replicate human individuality through artificial intelligence. Founded in 2024 with initial self-funding, Eternos, now rebranded as Uare.ai, began by helping terminally ill clients, such as Michael Bommer, create digital replicas that preserve their voice and life stories for posterity. Bommer famously spent 25 hours sharing his memories and worldview to build his AI likeness. However, LoCascio discovered that those most interested in the service were not preparing for death but saw potential in creating personal AI models for everyday use.
Uare.ai’s Human Life Model (HLM) is designed to capture an individual’s unique values, memories, and decision-making attributes using only their own data, rather than relying on broad large language models. With $10.3 million in seed funding led by Mayfield and Boldstart Ventures, Uare.ai aims to scale this technology for creators and professionals. The platform, set to launch later this year, will allow users to train their HLM through interactive questions in text, voice, and video. These AI replicas will be able to generate content, manage interactions, and execute tasks with the same expertise as their human counterparts, without filling gaps with generic AI data like other chatbots.
New documentary studio Unfeatured Films to utilize AI for reviving archival footage
Filmmaker Daniel Clarke has launched Unfeatured Films, a documentary studio that promises to breathe new life into static archival photos and degraded footage using artificial intelligence. The venture aims to transform historical material into dynamic video clips at a fraction of traditional costs, opening up storytelling possibilities previously constrained by limited visuals. “We’re building a studio that creates human-centric, cinematic docs that use AI not for shortcuts but for breakthroughs,” Clarke said. “This allows us to tell the past with the vividness of the present and to do it at a scale and cost that opens new doors for filmmakers and buyers alike. New technology makes the impossible possible, allowing us to film the past.”
The studio’s debut project, “No Hands: The Wild Ride of the Schwinn Bicycle Company,” is slated for completion ahead of the 2026 festival circuit. Produced by filmmakers behind credits such as the Bill Murray-narrated “Loopers: The Caddie’s Long Walk” and Jason Bateman’s “The Lego Brickumentary,” it will showcase Unfeatured’s AI capabilities. The company is in talks with archives and estates for material, while seeking partnerships with networks and streamers.
New York Times sues AI startup Perplexity for illegally copying millions of articles
The New York Times filed a federal lawsuit Friday against Perplexity AI, accusing the artificial intelligence startup of illegally copying and distributing millions of its articles without permission. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges Perplexity’s generative AI tools scrape paywalled content to train models and reproduce journalists’ work en masse. The Times also claims violations of its trademarks under the Lanham Act, saying Perplexity’s systems generate fabricated “hallucinations” falsely attributed to the newspaper alongside its logos. Perplexity’s business model depends on such web scraping, the suit says, drawing similar accusations from other publishers in an escalating clash between media companies and AI firms over unauthorized use of copyrighted material. The startup faces additional scrutiny, with Cloudflare earlier this year accusing it of stealth web crawling to bypass no-scraping directives, allegations Perplexity denied.
Perplexity AI, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup challenging Google’s search dominance, has raised about $1.5 billion in funding over the past three years through multiple rounds, most recently closing a $200 million infusion in September that valued the company at $20 billion. The fast-growing firm has drawn big-name investors, including Nvidia and Jeff Bezos, as capital has poured into the AI sector, with its annual recurring revenue approaching $200 million. At the same time, Perplexity faces mounting legal pressure from media publishers, including a recent lawsuit from Rupert Murdoch-owned Dow Jones and the New York Post, accusing it of unlawfully scraping and reproducing copyrighted articles to power its generative AI tools.
Multiple news outlets, including Forbes, Wired, the Chicago Tribune, Merriam-Webster, and Encyclopedia Britannica, have accused the company of copyright infringement through unauthorized scraping and plagiarism of their articles to fuel its generative search tools. Wired alleged Perplexity even copied one of its own stories detailing the startup’s plagiarism problems, while Reddit sued in October in New York federal court, claiming Perplexity and others unlawfully harvested its user data to train AI models. Adding to the pressure, Amazon filed suit last month alleging Perplexity covertly accessed customer accounts and masked its AI shopping agent’s browsing activities, charges Perplexity denied while accusing the e-commerce giant of bullying competitors to protect its turf.
