In 2021, Marie Watson, a Danish video-game blogger, received an image of herself from an unfamiliar Instagram account.
​
The image was unmistakably her own, lifted from her public feed. But it had been altered to depict her nude. She was the victim of a sexualized deepfake.
​
Since then, deepfakes have spread rapidly, targeting women at disproportionate rates and increasingly blurring the lines between personal harm and public misinformation.
​
Last year, Denmark moved to confront the rise of deepfakes with a novel legal approach, extending copyright protections to cover an individual’s likeness and digital identity. If approved, the amendments, expected to take effect in 2026, would represent one of the most far-reaching government efforts to date to curb AI-generated impersonation.

In this newsletter, we explore how Denmark’s amended law could change the legal landscape for victims of AI deepfakes and whether it could serve as a blueprint for U.S. and global AI regulations.