Now that artificial intelligence is firmly here to stay, celebrities are taking notice and pushing back. Pop titan Taylor Swift recently filed three trademark applications to protect her voice and likeness from being copied without her consent.
Her application, filed late last week with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, targets distinct “sound marks” in which the singer says “Hi, I’m Taylor Swift” and “Hi, I’m Taylor.” They also cover, among other things, image trademarks of the artist standing on stage wearing a multicolored bodysuit and silver boots (one of her signatures) while holding a pink guitar. era tour appearance).
Swift is not the first to take such steps in an age of AI uncertainty. Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey acquired eight trademarks in 2025. It also includes a snippet of his voice uttering the famous line from the 1993 indie comedy, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Stunned and confused – other audio clips, video clips, etc.
Creative types have existing copyright protection. Copyright law protects songs in the United States, but this is complicated by the ability of AI to generate entirely new works based on an artist’s or actor’s voice. Additionally, in certain states, a person’s likeness or image is protected by “right of publicity” laws.
But intellectual property lawyer Josh Gerben said on his blog that Swift and McConaughey’s recent filings “examine a new theory about how trademark law works in the age of AI.”
Gerben, who first discovered Swift’s application, said Swift’s trademark could theoretically allow the singer to claim that use of a voice or image similar to the trademark infringes. Although it doesn’t technically have to be an identical copy, she could be sued if the work is “confusingly similar” to her trademark.
“This is a shot over the bow,” said Dr Kathy Bowley, a professor at the NSW Faculty of Law and Justice. Bowley said Swift is claiming “if AI content is being generated, she’s claiming a right to a slice of whatever pie there is, and in theory trying to control some of its uses, especially the uses she finds objectionable.”
Pretty sure, don’t you think? As AI continues to evolve, you can bet that celebrities of all stripes will jump on the similar bandwagon. Well, not completely.
Swift and McConaughey were among the first to use trademarks to protect their voices, but such cases have yet to fully reach the courts, especially when it comes to AI. There is no precedent, but one could eventually be created.
Such trademarks are jurisdiction-specific and are therefore partially limited to the country in which the trademark is granted. “If you don’t have an Australian trademark registration, for example, it won’t work here,” Mr Bowley said.
Celebrity rights laws apply in some parts of the world, but “they don’t work particularly well in Australia. We don’t have anything like it. We have competition laws. If something is in fact deceptive and misleading, we can prevent that from happening. But there’s nothing that creates ownership rights in likeness or likeness.”
For now, it appears that such a trademark could give American artists and actors additional protection, or even more ammunition, in the fight against non-consensual AI creations that imitate their personas.
It’s no wonder someone like Swift finds this appealing. She has been imitated by AI several times without permission. Last year, it was reported that Meta’s unauthorized AI chatbots of virtual celebrities, including Swift, were “routinely making sexual advances”, forcing the tech giant to remove them. The singer has been the subject of a pornographic “deepfake,” and US President Donald Trump also shared an AI-generated image of her during his 2024 election campaign, falsely suggesting she was supporting him.
This is becoming increasingly a challenge for celebrities who make money from idiosyncratic figures. The growing unregulated use of AI in the entertainment industry was one of the key issues during the 2023 Hollywood Double Strike.
The studio has signed a deal that guarantees important AI guardrails, but it remains a contentious issue. British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson applied to trademark his face earlier this year after his image was used in various advertisements without his permission. Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson hired a lawyer in 2024 after realizing her voice sounded “eerily similar” to an OpenAI chatbot.
It remains to be seen whether Swift’s filing works as intended. “A federal court will need a case that thoroughly tests the legal theory behind the application; however, the legal theory behind the application is [seem] strong. “
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Nell Geraets is culture reporter for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or Email.
