This bill amends existing law in chapter RCW 63.60 (sections .010, .020, .030, .050, .060, and .070) to update and clarify property rights in a person's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness. It treats those attributes as a transferable and licensable property right that does not expire at death, allows inter vivos and testamentary transfers (including wills, trusts, contracts, community property agreements, survivorship arrangements, and payable-on-death provisions), and sets priority rules for successors, heirs, and transferees under RCW 63.60.030. The bill defines key terms (including "individual," "personality," "photograph," "likeness," "voice," "signature," and time windows for "deceased individual" and "deceased personality") and declares unauthorized, knowing use of a living or deceased person’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness in specified contexts to be infringement. It authorizes superior courts to grant injunctions, to impound materials while an action is pending, and to order destruction or other disposition as part of final relief. Remedies include actual damages, recovery of any profits attributable to infringement, recovery of reasonable attorneys' fees, expenses, and court costs for the prevailing party, and a civil penalty of $3,000 for knowing infringement. For statutory-damage computation the bill provides that use in or related to one work counts as a single act of infringement regardless of copies or displays. The amendment also lists exemptions and limits on the chapter, including uses connected to cultural, historical, political, religious, educational, newsworthy, or public interest matters (including comment, criticism, satire, and parody), single and original fine art works not published in more than five copies, certain journalistic and artistic works where no false endorsement is claimed, specified advertising or packaging uses when consent was given for initial distribution, descriptive or de minimis uses, and exemptions for owners or employees of advertising media in certain circumstances. The text provided is incomplete in one respect: the clause describing how injured parties must prove profits is cut off, and additional text for RCW 63.60.070 and any other procedural details beyond the provided excerpts is not included. The bill was prefiled January 8, 2026, read for the first time January 12, 2026, referred to the Committee on Law & Justice, and lists Senators Wellman, Nobles, and Slatter as sponsors.

If enacted, individuals (and many deceased persons whose persona had commercial value) would have a lasting, transferable property right in their name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness that heirs, successors, trustees, or other assignees can enforce. Courts could stop uses, impound or order destruction of infringing materials, and award actual damages, any profits from the use, and a $3,000 civil penalty for knowing infringement; the law treats use in or related to a single work as one act of infringement regardless of copies or displays. The law also expressly preserves exemptions for news, commentary, satire, historical/cultural/public interest uses, certain fine art (not published in more than five copies), many media outlets that publish ads, and authorized uses tied to an artistic work’s initial sale or display, and a complaining individual cannot bring a class action where multiple people are used. People most affected are rights owners and their estates, who would likely gain clearer ability to monetize and enforce these persona rights, and businesses, media outlets, advertisers, and creators that use images, voices, or likenesses, who face higher litigation, potential penalties, seizure or destruction of materials, and responsibility for legal fees if they lose. The measure also reaches back to rights and transfers before mid-1998, so existing contracts and estates could be implicated. The law leaves unclear the full method for proving profits and some damage-calculation details, so the exact financial exposure and proof burdens remain uncertain.