Everybody! (Yeah!) File your trademarks! (Yeah!) Everybody! (Yeah!) Protect your body of vocal work… alright!
No, it doesn’t scan. But US man-band Backstreet Boys have become the latest artist to use a trademark filing as a defensive weapon in the battle against unauthorised voice clones.
Lawyer Josh Gerben, who is very much on top of spotting and reporting on these filings ahead of industry media, noted the filing for a ‘sensory mark’ of the band saying “Hi, we’re the Backstreet Boys”.
Backstreeet Boys’ move follows similar filings from Taylor Swift and Lionel Richie in recent months. Gerben also offered some analysis on whether this filing would be effective, if it is approved.
“If someone uses AI to generate an entirely different phrase (or a song that was never performed by the group), but still uses a voices that sound like the group, is that still infringing on this particular trademark?” he wrote.
“The Backstreet Boys would likely argue that trademark infringement turns on whether consumers are likely to be confused, not whether the exact words are identical. If an AI-generated recording sounds confusingly similar to the protected sound, they could contend that it infringes their trademark rights.”
However, he warned that the platforms to which the AI slop might be uploaded could take “a much narrower view” and see the protection as only applying to recordings “confusingly similar to the specific phrase that was registered”.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com ’
