# AI and Protecting a Celebrity’s voice through Trademark

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/ai-and-protecting-a-celebritys-voice-through-trademark/
- Published: 2026-08-03T10:31:50+00:00
- Updated: 2026-08-25T14:33:01+00:00
- Original publisher: Music Business Worldwide
- Original article: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/ai-and-protecting-a-celebritys-voice-through-trademark/
- Topics: AI, Celebrity, Entertainment, Music, Technology

## Key points

- Celebrities are trademarking their voices and catchphrases to fight AI cloning
- Taylor Swift, Lionel Richie and Backstreet Boys follow McConaughey's lead
- Federal trademark status could enable faster takedowns of AI deepfakes

## Summary

A growing number of celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Lionel Richie and the Backstreet Boys, are filing trademark applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office to protect the sound of their voices and signature catchphrases, following Matthew McConaughey's pioneering registrations from 2023. The strategy is a response to mounting concern over artificial intelligence being used to clone celebrities' voices without consent, compensation or legal recourse, and marks a shift away from relying solely on the patchwork of state right-of-publicity laws that have traditionally governed the use of a person's name, image and likeness.

Under the Lanham Act, a mark can be registered if it acts as a "source identifier" that consumers associate with a single origin, a principle already applied to sounds such as NBC's three-note chime, registered in 1950. McConaughey holds eight registrations, including his "Alright, alright, alright" catchphrase, granted between late 2025 and early 2026, alongside video-based "motion marks" of his gestures; Swift has filed for spoken-word audio clips, Richie for four lyric lines, and the Backstreet Boys for their group introduction. Lawyers note the approach is legally untested but attractive because federal registration offers nationwide enforcement, presumptive validity and statutory damages, potentially enabling platforms such as Google, Amazon and Meta to remove AI-generated deepfakes more readily than existing publicity laws allow.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.