Taylor Swift is stepping up the legal war on AI copycats

Taylor Swift has been at the center of AI imitation controversies for years, and now, she’s become the latest celebrity who’s escalating attempts to protect herself from AI copycats. As usual, however, the legal system intersects with technology in complicated ways — and Swift’s efforts may be a long shot.

In trademark applications filed last week, Swift’s team asked for protection for two phrases spoken by the singer: Hey, it’s Taylor Swift and Hey, it’s Taylor. The trademark applications, filed by TAS Rights Management on behalf of Swift, include audio clips of Swift saying the two phrases as part of a promotion for her latest album. “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift, and you can listen to my new album The Life of a Showgirl on demand on Amazon Music Unlimited,” Swift says in one of the clips. TAS Rights Management filed a trademark application for a photo of Swift as well, which shows the musician “holding a pink guitar, with a black strap and wearing a multi-colored iridescent bodysuit with silver boots” on stage.

Though Swift’s team hasn’t said that the trademarks are meant to protect against AI misuse, it seems like a likely possibility given Swift’s history with AI. Not only has the star had to deal with the threat of AI music, but Swift also contended with an onslaught of sexualized AI deepfakes.

Artists have long used copyright law to protect their music, but the rise of AI-generated tracks has made defending their work and likenesses more difficult. That’s because copyrights only protect an artist’s song — not their voice. Legal teams have had to get a bit creative as a result, with Universal Music Group (UMG) issuing copyright takedown requests of an AI-generated Drake song, citing the Metro Boomin producer tag that plays at the beginning.

As explained by IP attorney Josh Gerben, trademarks could help fill the gap created by AI-generated mimicry. Instead of targeting exact copies of her music, Swift “could potentially challenge not only identical reproductions, but also imitations that are ‘confusingly similar,’” according to Gerben. The photo of Swift, similarly, could be potentially used to take action against similar AI-generated imagery. Earlier this year, Matthew McConaughey similarly obtained trademarks for video clips of himself, including one where he says “Alright, alright, alright” to protect against AI misuse.

But Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University, tells The Verge that she’s “skeptical” that the audio clip submitted by Swift’s team “demonstrates use as a mark, rather than just a phrase that’s included as part of a longer message”:

Typically for a soundmark we’d think of something like the NBC chimes or the MGM lion roar that plays at the beginning of each show or movie in isolation… If the USPTO [US Patent and Trademark Office] does issue preliminary refusals, Taylor’s team will have a chance to provide different specimens that might do a better job satisfying the use requirement.

Swift’s trademarks could serve as another legal tool in her arsenal against AI-generated copycats, even if they’re legally murky. Xiyin Tang, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, tells The Verge that trademarks could help “warn off unsophisticated infringers by directing them to a federal registration number and certificate of registration and hope that convinces them to stop, not because the federal registration would actually hold up in court.”

There are already some avenues Swift’s team could take, including the right of publicity laws enacted across several states, which allow people to take legal action against the misuse of their name or likeness. Artists can combat false advertising and endorsements through federal law, too. “Swift also has numerous trademark registrations for her name, so she can sue for federal trademark infringement if there’s a use of her name by someone else that creates a likelihood of confusion,” Roberts says.

So far, only Tennessee has passed a law that specifically addresses AI-generated copycats of an artist’s voice. Even YouTube’s deepfake detection tool, which gives celebrities, politicians, journalists, and creators the ability to take down AI-generated lookalikes, only applies to people copying their faces for now. In the absence of a larger framework for AI soundalikes, artists like Swift may hope trademark law will help defend against AI mimics that are coming not just for their faces, but their voices, too.