Correction (19 October 2026): An earlier version of this article described events that we could not verify. It has been rewritten from verifiable sources, which are linked in the text.

An earlier version of this article opened with a stadium concert by an AI clone of a deceased K-pop idol, followed by a lawsuit from his heirs. We could find no record of either event, and both have been removed. The question behind them is real, though, and Korea has already met it in practice. Broadcasters have used artificial intelligence and holograms to bring deceased singers back to the screen. Meanwhile, Korean law has still not settled who, if anyone, may authorise a new performance by someone who has died.

This article sets out what has actually happened, what Korean law provides today, the reform that is still pending, and how Türkiye, the European Union and the United States approach the same problem. Our own assessment follows at the end and is marked as such.

What has actually happened in Korea

The best-documented example is a television programme rather than a concert. In January 2021 the broadcaster SBS aired a New Year special whose Korean title CNN rendered as Competition of the Century: AI vs Human. According to SBS's own description of the first episode, a voice-imitation AI recreated the voice of the singer Kim Kwang-seok, who died in 1996, and had it sing a song first released in 2002. The news agency Newsis had reported in December 2020 that the programme would feature, in his voice, a song Kim never sang in his lifetime. A CNN report published shortly before the broadcast stated that SBS had obtained the consent of Kim's family to reproduce his voice, and noted that others had raised concerns about the ethics and legality of resurrecting the voices of the dead.

A second example had aired a few weeks earlier. On 9 December 2020 the music channel Mnet broadcast the first episode of One More Time, a special programme that, according to a press release by CJ OliveNetworks, used AI technologies including voice restoration, face editing and holograms to recreate the faces and voices of artists the public missed. The first episode featured Turtleman of the group Turtles (Geobugi), who died in 2008. CJ OliveNetworks said it had recreated his face with AI trained on his past photographs and videos. Xports News reported that the group's two surviving members performed alongside the AI-restored Turtleman, appearing on stage as a complete group for the first time in 12 years.

Two points matter for the legal analysis. First, both projects were broadcast productions, not a commercial tour of a digital replica. Second, the sources we reviewed mention no court case arising from either production. The legal debate in Korea has so far been about the general framework, not about a particular dispute over a deceased singer.

What Korean law provides today

Publicity as unfair competition: item (ta) of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act

Korea has no stand-alone statute on the right of publicity. The closest provision is in the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act. An amendment of 7 December 2021 (Act No. 18548) added a new item (ta) to Article 2(1). According to a 2023 newsletter by the law firm Hwawoo (Yoon & Yang), it has applied since 8 June 2022. The Korea JoongAng Daily also gives 8 June as the date. The provision treats as unfair competition the use, for one's own business and without permission, of another person's name, portrait, voice, signature or other identifying sign that is widely recognised in Korea and has economic value, in a way contrary to fair commercial practice or competition order, which harms that person's economic interests. The statutory text names voice expressly, which matters for AI voice synthesis.

The law firm Shin & Kim described the amendment as the first Korean law to recognise the right of publicity expressly. It noted that before it, some courts had found infringement on other grounds, such as personality rights or tort, while others had rejected claims for lack of a legal basis. A commentary in Metro Seoul cautioned that the provision alone does not mean Korea has fully adopted a right of publicity.

For deceased artists, the limits are clear. Item (ta) is framed as unfair competition. It protects identifying signs that are widely known and economically valuable, against unauthorised commercial use. It says nothing about death, heirs or how long protection lasts. A Korean commentary on the provision observes that whether these signs, unlike personality rights, can be transferred or inherited still needs much discussion. It also notes that it is unresolved whether the reputation belongs to the artist or to the agency.

No statutory post-mortem right, and older case law

Without a statute, the courts have filled some of the gap. In a case reported by the Korea JoongAng Daily in February 2007, a descendant of novelist Lee Hyo-seok, who died in 1942, sued over the use of his image and signature on gift certificates. The court treated the commercial value of a person's image as a property-like right that heirs can inherit. By analogy with the then 50-year copyright term, it limited protection to 50 years after death, which defeated the claim. The same report noted that Korean law had no specific provision on publicity rights and that a bill on the subject had stalled in the National Assembly. A first-instance ruling of this kind does not bind other courts, and the 50-year figure was the court's own analogy, not a statutory rule.

The pending Civil Act reform: a 30-year inheritable right

The most concrete proposal comes from the Ministry of Justice. From 26 December 2022 to 6 February 2023 it gave public notice of a Civil Act amendment creating a "right to commercially use personal identifiers" (ingyeok pyoji yeongni-gwon). It defines this as the right to exploit commercially one's portrait, name, voice and other identifying features. According to the Ministry, the right would be inherited on the holder's death and would last for thirty years. The Hwawoo newsletter adds that, under draft Article 3-3, the right itself could not be transferred because of its personal character, although the holder could license others to use it commercially.

The proposal is broader than item (ta): it would apply to everyone, not only to celebrities. As of May 2026 it had still not been enacted. A column in Ilgan Sports described the government as still pursuing a Civil Act right, inheritable for up to 30 years after death, and hoped that the pending amendment would pass soon. We could not confirm its present stage in the National Assembly.

The memory of the deceased

Criminal law offers narrower protection. Article 308 of the Criminal Act punishes anyone who publicly alleges false facts and thereby defames a deceased person, with imprisonment of up to two years or a fine of up to five million won. Under Article 312(1), the offence is prosecuted only on complaint, and as a rule the complaint may be brought by the deceased's relatives or descendants, as a Korean legal commentary on Article 308 explains. Whether an AI-generated statement that a dead singer never made counts as "alleging a false fact" is an open question. It is not the same as defamation: a flattering fabrication may harm no one's reputation and still misrepresent the person.

Consent: the real issue

The useful distinction is not between "hologram" and "AI" but between reproduction and generation. Showing footage of a concert the artist actually gave uses existing recordings, and the rights in them are largely a matter of copyright and related rights. Generating a new performance is different. That covers a song the artist never sang, a speech they never gave, or an endorsement they never made. It puts words and conduct into the mouth of someone who can no longer agree or object.

Under current Korean law, nobody is clearly entitled to give or refuse that consent after death. Item (ta) protects economic interests against unfair competition but does not say who holds them once the artist has died. The Civil Act draft would answer that for 30 years by vesting an inheritable right in the heirs. Even then, two practical questions would remain:

  • Lifetime contracts. Many artists sign long agency agreements. The draft treats the right itself as non-transferable and allows only licences. A broad licence granted during the artist's life would therefore have to be read against that structure. Whether it can reach new, AI-generated performances after death is a question of contract interpretation that Korean courts have not yet answered.
  • Disagreement among heirs. An inheritable right may pass to several people. The draft, as summarised in the sources we reviewed, does not say how they decide if they disagree about a digital recreation.

How Türkiye compares

Turkish law starts from the same premise as most civil-law systems. Under Article 28 of the Turkish Civil Code (TMK), personality begins at live birth and ends with death. Articles 24 and 25 protect personality rights against unlawful attack and provide for injunctions, declaratory relief, damages and the surrender of profits. Under Article 25, a claim for non-pecuniary damages passes to the heirs only if the deceased had already asserted it. Turkish law has no general "post-mortem publicity right" as such.

The Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works (FSEK) contains the closest parallel. Under Article 86, pictures and portraits may not be exhibited or otherwise made public without the consent of the person depicted. If that person has died, the consent of the persons listed in Article 19(1) is required until ten years after the death. Those persons are, in order, the executor of the will, then the surviving spouse and children, appointed heirs, parents and siblings. Article 86 also exempts certain pictures from the consent requirement, including those of persons who play a role in the country's political and social life. Article 85 lays down a similar rule for letters, memoirs and similar writings, and both articles expressly preserve TMK Article 24. Article 130 of the Turkish Criminal Code (TCK) punishes insulting the memory of a deceased person. Under Article 131(2), ascendants and descendants up to the second degree, the spouse or siblings may file the complaint.

On our reading, FSEK Article 86 is the nearest Turkish analogue to an estate-consent rule, but its scope is narrow. It speaks of pictures and portraits, not of voice or behaviour, and its protection ends ten years after death. Whether it extends to a synthetic likeness generated by AI has not, as far as we know, been tested.

The European Union and the United States

EU law contains no harmonised right of publicity. The GDPR, as Recital 27 states, does not apply to the personal data of deceased persons, although Member States may adopt their own rules. The AI Act deals with transparency rather than consent. Article 50(4) requires deployers of AI systems that generate or manipulate deep fakes to disclose that the content is artificial, with a lighter disclosure duty for evidently artistic or fictional works; Article 50 applies from 2 August 2026. Disclosure tells the audience that a recreation is synthetic. It does not decide whether the recreation was permitted.

In the United States, publicity rights are a matter of state law and vary widely. According to the Right of Publicity Roadmap, California protects post-mortem publicity rights for 70 years after death under Civil Code section 3344.1. The same resource reports that Indiana and Oklahoma protect them for 100 years. The United States therefore already has examples of the time-limited post-mortem model that Korea's Ministry of Justice proposed.

Burhan Doğuş Ayparlar's View

The following is analysis and opinion.

The Korean examples show that the technology has outpaced the law. Nobody needs an invented lawsuit to see the gap. A singer's voice can be synthesised for a national broadcast today, yet Korean statute does not clearly say who may authorise that after death. The two candidate answers, unfair competition law and an inheritable civil right, protect economic value. Neither, as drafted, deals directly with the different harm of making a person appear to say or sing something new.

In our view, a sound framework would separate three things. The first is the reuse of recordings the artist actually made, which copyright and related rights can largely govern. The second is the commercial use of a deceased artist's identity, where a time-limited inheritable right of the kind Korea's Ministry of Justice proposed is a reasonable model. The third is the generation of new speech, song or conduct attributed to the deceased. For that third category, we think the clearest basis is specific consent given by the person during their lifetime. General clauses in old agency contracts should not be read as covering it. Where no such consent exists, the heirs' approval and clear disclosure to the audience should be minimum conditions.

For Türkiye, FSEK Article 86 already reflects the idea that close relatives should control the public display of a deceased person's image for a period. If the legislature takes up digital replicas, extending that logic to voice and synthetic likeness, and reconsidering the ten-year limit, would be a natural starting point. Until then, disputes will have to be argued under TMK Articles 24 and 25 and FSEK Article 86, and none of these was written with generative AI in mind.

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. It reflects the sources listed above as of 19 October 2026.