Too Late Now To Say Sorry?: Rethinking Personality Rights In The Era Of Dupes And Deepfakes

A recent incident involving a Justin Bieber impersonator at a Las Vegas nightclub illustrates how quickly identity can be leveraged.

During another artist's performance, an uninvited lookalike took the stage and mimicked Bieber. Videos of the stunt spread rapidly across social media, drawing millions of views. The nightclub promptly removed the impersonator and banned him from future entry, showing awareness that even a seemingly harmless stunt can create legal, commercial, and reputational risks.

In Canada, the tort of misappropriation of personality provides a foundation for addressing unauthorized uses of identity. However, the rise of viral content and AI-generated media is creating new challenges for celebrities, athletes, venues, and promoters. As attention becomes a monetizable commodity, indirect benefits such as visibility, engagement, and ad revenue have blurred traditional ideas of "commercial purpose."

This article reviews the core elements of the tort and the practical implications of its evolving application.

The Bieber incident

The Las Vegas episode appeared lighthearted. The venue did not promote Bieber, and no one bought tickets expecting him to be there. Nevertheless, the impersonator gained exposure that could lead to bookings, sponsorships, or online monetization, even without direct profit from the event. The venue's branding also appeared in viral posts, potentially driving future traffic.

Although the incident likely falls outside the core of misappropriation of personality, it highlights how fleeting moments can now become popular online content with indirect commercial value. Impersonation may allow others to capture attention or opportunities from a celebrity's identity, rather than benefiting the celebrity directly. At the same time, while the venue is unlikely to face legal liability, it may still derive incidental benefits from the exposure.

Misappropriation of personality

The tort of misappropriation of personality protects a celebrity's image or personality. The tort requires that:

1. The subject is clearly identifiable.
2. The exploitation of the subject's personality must be for a commercial purpose.

The law differentiates between using a celebrity's identity to sell or promote something and using it as the subject of the work. If the personality indicia—whether name, image, likeness, or something else—are used to endorse a product or service, personality rights may be engaged. Using them for biographical or informational reasons, on the other hand, typically does not trigger actionable personality rights claims. In this way, courts have balanced personality rights against free expression interests.

This framework captures classic endorsement-style misuses and can also address unintentional evocations where the likeness and context are strong. However, the commercial landscape is changing. Benefits can now arise from virality, engagement metrics, and algorithmic amplification, rather than mere traditional advertisements.

New risks: Social media and AI

Many social platforms monetize engagement. A convincing impersonation shared online may generate revenue through platform programs, sponsorships, or follower growth.

Venues and promoters may also gain exposure or promotional value when their branding appears in viral clips, without directly participating in the impersonation. While this complicates the overall analysis of commercial benefit, such incidental advantages do not usually trigger legal liability under misappropriation of personality.

AI tools add an additional layer of risk. Modern image, audio, and video generators can produce content that closely resembles real celebrities, sometimes unintentionally. Marketers using AI-generated characters risk claims if the output evokes a real athlete or celebrity. Deepfakes can fabricate endorsements, and even "fictional" characters may trigger concerns if they reproduce distinctive traits of known personalities.

These technologies do not fall outside existing law, but they create subtler scenarios of identification, endorsement, and commercial gain. Platforms and advertisers must now navigate these risks proactively.

International developments

As discussed in our prior article, international initiatives such as Denmark's 2025 deepfake proposal reflect growing recognition that the possibility of AI-generated replicas drive the need for more specific protections.

While these foreign regimes are not binding in Canada, they illustrate a broader trend toward regulating digital likeness and synthesized identity. They also underscore the increasingly overlapping concerns of personality rights, privacy, and intellectual property in the AI era. These developments highlight the need for proactive strategies by both rightsholders and industry participants.

Practical guidance for industry participants

Celebrities and performers should take proactive measures to safeguard their likeness, including incorporating explicit contractual clauses that address impersonations and AI-generated content. Continuous monitoring of online activity can help identify viral posts, deepfakes, or AI-generated material that uses or replicates their image or voice.

Although increased visibility can sometimes be beneficial, it is important to evaluate the reputational risks that may arise from unauthorized or misleading content. When such issues occur, responses should be thoughtful and strategic, whether through requests for removal, public clarification, or other appropriate actions while keeping in mind public-interest exceptions such as parodies, satire, or commentary.

Venues and promoters should view potential impersonations as compliance and reputational risks that necessitate clear internal protocols. Staff should be ready to respond promptly to uninvited performers or misleading content associated with the venue's branding. Contracts with performers and promoters should contain explicit provisions addressing impersonations, likeness, and AI-generated material to mitigate ambiguity and potential liability.

Ongoing monitoring of online content involving the venue can help ensure that any unauthorized use of branding or identity is managed in a timely and appropriate manner. The focus should remain on risk management rather than on efforts to capitalize on viral exposure.

Conclusion

The Bieber impersonator incident demonstrates how quickly identity can be transformed into viral content with potential commercial implications. Personality rights protection under Canadian law aims to safeguard against the use of another's identity for commercial purposes, but social media dynamics and AI tools are multiplying the ways in which identity can be invoked and monetized.

For sports and entertainment stakeholders, the challenge is not to reinvent personality rights but to enforce them strategically in a digital world where attention is currency and synthetic identities can be generated in seconds.

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