Taylor Swift has applied for new trademarks on the sound of her voice — a legal tactic that appears aimed at protecting her likeness from AI deepfakes.
In a pair of filings on Friday (April 24), the superstar asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to issue her federal trademark registrations of her voice saying “Hey, it’s Taylor” and “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift.” The filings, obtained by Billboard, came with audio clips of the phrases she wants to protect.
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Trademarks on sounds are unusual; such IP is far more often applied to names and logos. But they do exist — the NBC chimes are a famous example — and stars like Mathew McConaughey have recently applied for them out of growing fears about AI deepfakes and voice cloning.
Swift also applied for a third trademark, covering an image of herself performing on stage. All three proposed registrations, if granted, would cover use of the trademarks on a wide range of “entertainment services.” The filings were first reported by Josh Gerben, an attorney unaffiliated with the matter.
Taken together, Swift’s applications appear aimed at protecting her name and likeness against misappropriation — something the superstar has repeatedly experienced, including once from President Donald Trump. The growth of AI technology has made it far easier to mimic voices and create fake videos, flooding the internet with such misleading content and leaving stars with little recourse.
Legally speaking, an individual’s identity has historically been protected by publicity rights, a term for state law rights that allow you to sue if your name or likeness is commercially exploited without consent. Federal trademark law does cover famous names — Taylor has many such marks, and has enforced them recently — but is less directly designed to shield a person’s likeness.
Last year, McConaughey took a novel approach and sought to “trademark himself,” as reported by the Wall Street Journal. He sought protection over several video clips of himself, as well as audio of him saying his famous “Alright, alright, alright” from the film Dazed and Confused. But it remains to be seen whether such an approach, which Taylor’s applications seem to mirror, would hold up in court.
Trademarks typically cover specific words, logos and other indicia that are linked in the minds of consumers to specific goods and services; they were not designed to give blanket protection to a person’s overall appearance or identity. For instance, it’s unclear if Swift would be able to prove that someone infringed her proposed sound trademarks if they said something in a similar-sounding voice but with different words than “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift.”
That Swift is turning to such unproven methods is a sign of the lack of true legal protections as the problem of AI deepfakes and voice cloning grows. Publicity rights come with key limitations and are different in each state. Lawmakers in Congress have proposed a federal NO FAKES Act to deal with the problem nationally, but have made little progress passing it.
If granted, the new trademarks would be added to a huge collection for Swift, who owns federal protections on her name, song and album titles, famous lyrics and dozens of other trademarks. And she’s not afraid to enforce them: Earlier this year, Swift filed a legal action aimed at blocking a bedding company called Cathay Home from getting a trademark on a logo featuring the name “Swift Home.”
