{"id":420263,"date":"2026-04-27T16:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/420263\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T16:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:50:08","slug":"taylor-swift-files-to-trademark-voice-and-likeness-to-protect-against-ai-misuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/420263\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift Files to Trademark Voice and Likeness to Protect Against AI Misuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTaylor Swift<\/a> has taken a new legal step seemingly aimed at protecting her identity in the age of AI \u2014 following in the footsteps of actor Matthew McConaughey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, April 24, Swift\u2019s company filed three trademark applications with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Two relate to sound trademarks covering her voice: one is \u201cHey, it\u2019s Taylor Swift,\u201d and the other is \u201cHey, it\u2019s Taylor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe third trademark is a visual trademark covering \u201ca photograph of Taylor Swift holding a pink guitar, with a black strap and wearing a multi-colored iridescent bodysuit with silver boots. She is standing on a pink stage in front of a multi-colored microphone with purple lights in the background.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s the image from the trademark application filing:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tU.S. Patent & Trademark Office<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filings, made on behalf on Swift\u2019s TAS Rights Management, were spotted by intellectual-property attorney Josh Gerben of Gerben IP. According to Gerben, her trademark applications reflect growing concern among talent in the entertainment industry about potential danger of AI to steal artists\u2019 ability to control their voice and likeness without their consent.<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety has reached out for comment to reps for Swift and to Rebecca Liebowitz, partner at law firm Venable, who is listed on the trademark applications.<\/p>\n

\n\tHistorically, trademarks aren\u2019t designed to protect an individual\u2019s general likeness, voice or persona. But the theory pursued by McConaughey\u2019s legal team is that such trademark protections would provide additional legal remedies beyond traditional right-of-publicity claims to fight against AI-generated content that misappropriates someone\u2019s likeness.<\/p>\n

\n\tSwift\u2019s likeness has been used without permission in numerous AI fakes, including by Meta\u2019s AI chatbots<\/a> and in pornographic images that have circulated on the internet<\/a>. In addition, in the run-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump shared AI-generated images of the singer inaccurately suggesting that Swift had endorsed Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tSwift\u2019s trademark filings come after lawyers for McConaughey secured similar trademarks. In 2025, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office granted eight trademarks for the actor. Those include a sound mark on audio of McConaughey saying, \u201cAlright, alright, alright!\u201d<\/a> \u2014 his memorable line from the 1993 comedy film \u201cDazed and Confused\u201d \u2014 and audio and video clips of him. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawyers behind McConaughey\u2019s \u201ctrademark yourself\u201d strategy believe it gives them an additional legal arrow in their quiver if they were to challenge an AI-generated replica that tried to capitalize on the actor\u2019s image and likeness without permission. Individual states, including New York and California, already have right-of-publicity laws that prevent unauthorized commercial use of a person\u2019s image and likeness. But trademark infringement lawsuits can be filed in federal court \u2014 a potentially potent greater deterrent to misuse, because those cases apply nationwide.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a blog post Monday, Gerben discussed how Swift\u2019s trademark strategy could be used to defend her name, image and likeness rights. (Gerben does not represent any parties involved in the Swift trademark filings.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTheoretically, if a lawsuit were to be filed over an AI using Swift\u2019s voice, she could claim that any use of her voice that sounds like the registered trademark violates her trademark rights,\u201d Gerben wrote. The singer\u2019s image-based filing \u201cserves a similar purpose. By protecting a distinctive visual, down to Swift\u2019s commonly worn jumpsuit and pose, Swift\u2019s team may gain additional grounds to pursue claims against manipulated or AI-generated images that evoke her likeness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201ctrademark yourself\u201d approach has not yet fully been tested in court with respect to AI. However, in theory, an actor or artist with such trademark protections could issue takedown claims against an AI platform similar to the way a studio can enforce its copyrights. In December 2025, for example, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google, alleging the tech giant\u2019s Gemini AI platform was being used to illegally generate copies of dozens of its trademarked characters. By the next day, Google had pulled down the offending videos.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUltimately, Taylor Swift and Matthew McConaughey\u2019s recent trademark filings are testing new theories on how trademark law will work in the AI age,\u201d Gerben wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift has taken a new legal step seemingly aimed at protecting her identity in the age of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60,6543],"class_list":["post-420263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-taylor-swift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}