Taylor Swift files trademarks for voice and image amid concern over AI misuse
TL;DR
The singer's company filed three applications on Friday after Matthew McConaughey launched a similar strategy. Taylor Swift has filed applications to trademark her voice and image in a move seemingly designed to protect against AI misuse. On 24 April, Swift's company TAS Rights Management filed three trademark applications, Variety reports. Two of these are sound trademarks which cover Swift saying the phrases Hey, it's Taylor Swift and Hey, it's Taylor.
Nauti's Take
Nauti sees a real opportunity here: when celebrities like Swift establish trademark rights over voice and image, the precedents eventually help regular creators and entrepreneurs too. Sound trademarks for spoken phrases is a clever use of existing IP tools.
The limit is clear though: trademark law blocks commercial misuse, not the deepfakes themselves — the underlying distribution problem stays unsolved. Anyone seriously worried about voice-cloning risk needs detection tooling and authentication on top, not trademarks alone.
Sources