LOS ANGELES: Pop icon Taylor Swift is safeguarding her interests as an artiste. The singer-songwriter has taken a new legal step seemingly aimed at protecting her identity in the age of AI, following in the footsteps of actor Matthew McConaughey.
Swift’s company recently filed three trademark applications with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, reports ‘Variety’.
Two relate to sound trademarks covering her voice: one is “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift”, and the other is “Hey, it’s Taylor”.
As per ‘Variety’, the third trademark is a visual trademark covering “a 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”.
The filings, made on behalf of Swift's 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 stealing artistes’ ability to control their voice and likeness without their consent.
Representatives for Swift and Rebecca Liebowitz, partner at law firm Venable, who is listed on the trademark applications, have offered no comments, so far. Historically, trademarks aren’t designed to protect an individual’s general likeness, voice or persona. But the theory pursued by Matthew McConaughey’s 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’s likeness.
Swift’s likeness has been used without permission in numerous AI fakes, including by Meta’s AI chatbots and in pornographic images that have circulated on the internet. 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.