Taylor Swift has taken a new step to protect her identity amid the rise of artificial intelligence.
On Friday, the singer-songwriter filed three trademark applications with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Two of those are sound trademarks: one is “Hey, It’s Taylor Swift,” while the other is “Hey, It’s Taylor.”
The third is a visual trademark which covers “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, which were first spotted by Gerben IP and filed through TAS Management and the law firm Venable LLP attorney Rebecca Liebowitz, come as singers have historically relied on copyright law to protect their recorded music.
But AI can allow users to generate completely new content that mimics an artist’s voice rather than copying an existing recording.
“By registering specific phrases tied to her voice, Swift could potentially challenge not only identical reproductions, but also imitations that are ‘confusingly similar,’ a key standard in trademark law,” intellectual property attorney Josh Gerben said in a blog post. “Theoretically, if a lawsuit were to be filed over an AI using Swift’s voice, she could claim that any use of her voice that sounds like the registered trademark violates her trademark rights.”
Gerben added that the image-based filing serves a similar purpose.
“By protecting a distinctive visual, down to Swift’s commonly worn jumpsuit and pose, Swift’s team may gain additional grounds to pursue claims against manipulated or AI-generated images that evoke her likeness,” he said.
Swift’s applications follow a similar legal move by actor Matthew McConaughey, who told The Wall Street Journal that he wants to “create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world.”
McConaughey’s trademarks include a seven-second clip of him standing on a porch, a three-second clip of him sitting in front of a Christmas tree, and audio of him saying “Alright, alright, alright,” from 1993’s “Dazed and Confused.”
“Ultimately, Taylor Swift and Matthew McConaughey’s recent trademark filings are testing new theories on how trademark law will work in the AI age,” Gerben said.
Liebowitz did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment on Swift’s trademark applications.
