In another sign of the times, Taylor Swift has filed three trademark applications relating to her voice and appearance in a bid to prevent AI impersonations of her.
As you’d expect, there have been already plenty of nefarious actors who have used AI applications of the world’s biggest pop star, many of them explicitly. Infamously, two years ago, a fake election ad was created by AI to imply Swift was urging people to vote for Donald Trump.
She is far from the first celebrity to go down this route. Earlier this year, the actor Matthew McConaughey trademarked his voice and image, with a clip of him saying the phrase ‘alright alright alright’ from the 1993 film Dazed And Confused registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office database.
In Swift’s case, she has registered a live image of her holding a pink guitar in a sparkly outfit and her voice saying ‘Hey, it’s Taylor’ and ‘Hey, it’s Taylor Swift’.
Will that be enough to deter people? Trademark lawyer Josh Greben thinks it can’t do any harm. Writing on his blog about the Swift move, he said: "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.
"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.
"Same with the image filing. If someone creates an AI-generated version of Taylor in a jumpsuit with a guitar, or something close to it, now Swift has a federal trademark claim."
Many other A-list pop stars will surely be watching events closely to see if Swift’s action has the desired effect.
