1 month ago
Taylor Swift has revenge applications to trademark her sound and image successful a move seemingly designed to protect against AI misuse.
On 24 April, Swift’s institution TAS Rights Management revenge 3 trademark applications, Variety reports. Two of these are sound trademarks that screen Swift saying nan phrases “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift” and “Hey, it’s Taylor.”
The 3rd exertion seeks to trademark nan well-known changeable of Swift connected shape during her Eras tour, describing “a photograph of Taylor Swift holding a pinkish guitar, pinch a achromatic strap and wearing a multi-colored iridescent bodysuit pinch metallic boots. She is opinionated connected a pinkish shape successful beforehand of a multi-colored microphone pinch purple lights successful nan background.”
The move comes aft Matthew McConaughey trademarked his celebrated “All right, each right, each right” catchphrase from 1993’s Dazed and Confused successful summation to different unauthorized uses of his image and sound this January.
“My squad and I want to cognize that erstwhile my sound aliases likeness is ever used, it’s because I approved and signed disconnected connected it,” McConaughey said successful a statement. “We want to create a clear perimeter astir ownership pinch consent and attribution nan norm successful an AI world.”
Swift’s likeness has been utilized successful galore AI images and deepfakes, including fake AI-created sexually definitive images. In 2024, Donald Trump posted galore AI images to Truth Social that falsely showed Swift endorsing him for president. The Guardian has approached a typical for Swift for comment.
“Attempting to registry a celebrity’s spoken sound is simply a caller usage of trademark registration that has not been tested successful tribunal before,” said nan intelligence spot lawyer Josh Gerben successful a blogpost.
“Historically, singers relied connected copyright rule to protect their recorded music,” he added. “But AI technologies now let users to make wholly caller contented that mimics an artist’s sound without copying an existing recording, creating a spread that trademarks whitethorn thief fill.
“By registering circumstantial phrases tied to her voice, Swift could perchance situation not only identical reproductions, but besides imitations that are ‘confusingly similar’, a cardinal modular successful trademark law.”
Swift owns much than 50 trademarks related to her sanction and medium titles arsenic good arsenic cardinal opus lyrics. After nan 2014 merchandise of her medium 1989, she registered trademarks for “This sick beat” and “We ne'er spell retired of style”, phrases that look successful deed songs Shake It Off and Style.
In 2024 she trademarked Female Rage: The Musical, referring to an Eras circuit conception successful which she performed songs from her medium The Tortured Poets Department.
