London
Taylor Swift has filed new trademark applications for 2 voice clips and one image {that a} trademark lawyer says are “specifically designed” to protect the pop celebrity from threats posed by synthetic intelligence.
The filings spotlight the challenges that AI poses to the entertainment industry, as AI instruments generate sensible movies with well-known performers and flood streaming platforms with digital music.
Swift’s applications have been filed Friday with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and add to a whole bunch of different trademark filings that listing her firm TAS Rights Management because the proprietor.
What units these filings aside is the inclusion of “sound marks,” that are a “lesser known category of trademark protection,” Josh Gerben, a US-based trademark lawyer and founding father of Gerben IP, wrote in a blog Monday. “Attempting to register a celebrity’s spoken voice is a new use of trademark registration that has not been tested in court before,” he famous.
In one of many audio clips, Swift is heard saying: “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift, and you can listen to my new album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl,’ on demand, on Amazon Music Unlimited.”
In the opposite clip, she says: “Hey! It’s Taylor. My brand new album ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ is out on October 3rd and you can click to pre-save it so you can listen to it on Spotify.”
The image that Swift is searching for to protect is {a photograph} of her on stage holding a pink guitar and carrying a sequinned outfit — an iconic look from her current globe-trotting Eras tour.
According to Gerben, actor Matthew McConaughey has filed comparable applications in current months to protect his voice and his image, “testing new theories on how trademark law will work in the AI age.”
The filings come as conventional copyright legal guidelines, which protect artists’ works from imitation, fail to guard towards AI-generated content material. “AI technologies now allow users to generate entirely new content that mimics an artist’s voice without copying an existing recording, creating a gap that trademarks may help fill,” Gerben mentioned.
In idea, Swift may declare in a lawsuit that any use of her voice that sounds just like the registered trademark — or AI-generated pictures of her in a jumpsuit with a guitar — violate her rights, he added.
Swift has filed greater than 300 trademark applications within the United States alone, a method that helps to “reinforce” her model, in accordance to Leticia Caminero an mental property lawyer on the World Intellectual Property Organization.
NCS has reached out to Swift’s attorneys for remark.