For decades, copyright has been the default weapon against unauthorized use of a person’s creative work. The logic was straightforward: someone copies your work, and you have a claim. Generative AI has complicated that simple strategy.
An AI-generated deepfake or voice clone is rarely a direct copy of any single work. It is synthesized from vast quantities of data, drawn from countless sources and reassembled into something new. Without a specific original to point to, copyright’s substantial-similarity standard becomes difficult to apply. This gap has left many public figures searching for another way to protect their identities.
Increasingly, they are turning to trademark law.
Recently, Taylor Swift filed applications to trademark elements of her voice and image, including the spoken words “Hey, it's Taylor” and a photograph of Swift “holding a pink guitar, with a black strap and wearing a multi-colored iridescent bodysuit with silver boots.” See, e.g., Ser. No. 99784977. Matthew McConaughey has taken an even broader approach, securing registrations for at least eight separate marks tied to his identity, covering his face, his voice, and signature phrases. For example, Registration No. 8070191 for the sensory mark ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT describes the mark as a sound consisting of “a man saying ‘ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT,’ wherein the first syllable of the first two words is at a lower pitch than the second syllable, and the first syllable of the last word is at a higher pitch than the second syllable.”
The strategy reflects a meaningful distinction between the two areas of law. Copyright protects original creative expression. Trademark law, on the other hand, protects consumers from confusion about the source of a product, service or endorsement. Under that framework, the relevant question is not whether an AI-generated voice or image was copied, but whether it is likely to mislead the public into believing a celebrity endorsed something they never approved.
This remains largely untested legal territory. No court has yet ruled on whether use of a synthetic voice qualifies as trademark infringement, and meaningful limitations apply. Registration requires genuine use in commerce and defenses like parody, criticism and commentary still apply. The approach is also best suited to individuals whose identities already function as commercial brands, which makes it a limited tool for the broader public confronting similar concerns about AI-generated likenesses.
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape how identity can be replicated and monetized, a single area of law is rarely sufficient protection. Copyright, trademark, and state right-of-publicity statutes each offer distinct advantages, and the strongest strategies increasingly draw on all three in combination.
Parsons Behle & Latimer’s intellectual property attorneys are closely monitoring these developments and advising clients on how to build protections that anticipate where this area of law is headed, not simply where it has been.
