Taylor Swift Escalates Legal Battle Against AI Copycats

Taylor Swift is taking a bold new step in her long-running fight against AI-generated impersonators, filing trademark applications that could give her legal grounds to challenge not just exact copies, but imitations that are confusingly similar to her voice and image. This move marks the latest escalation in an ongoing struggle where celebrity likeness rights collide with rapidly advancing AI technology.

The applications, submitted last week by Swift’s rights management company TAS Rights Management, seek protection for two spoken phrases: “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift” and “Hey, it’s Taylor.” Each application includes an audio clip from an Amazon Music Unlimited promotion for her album The Life of a Showgirl. In one, Swift says, “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift, and you can listen to my new album The Life of a Showgirl on demand on Amazon Music Unlimited.” Alongside the vocal trademarks, TAS also filed for a photo of Swift on stage, wearing a “multi-colored iridescent bodysuit with silver boots” and holding a pink guitar with a black strap.

While Swift’s team has not explicitly stated these filings are aimed at AI-generated content, the timing and context are telling. Swift has already faced threats from AI music mimicking her style, as well as a wave of sexualized deepfakes circulated online. For years, artists have relied on copyright to protect their songs, but copyright law does not cover a person’s voice. That gap has forced legal teams to get creative. Universal Music Group, for example, took down an AI-generated Drake song by citing the Metro Boomin producer tag rather than the vocal imitation itself.

Trademark law could offer a more flexible path. IP attorney Josh Gerben explains that instead of targeting exact replicas, Swift “could potentially challenge not only identical reproductions, but also imitations that are ‘confusingly similar.’” The photo trademark would similarly allow her to take action against AI-generated images that closely mimic her appearance. Matthew McConaughey took a similar approach earlier this year, trademarking video clips of himself saying “Alright, alright, alright” as a shield against AI misuse.

Still, experts caution that the legal road is far from clear. Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University, tells The Verge she is “skeptical” the audio clip demonstrates use as a mark rather than just a phrase within a longer message. “Typically for a soundmark we’d think of something like the NBC chimes or the MGM lion roar that plays at the beginning of each show or movie in isolation,” she says. If the USPTO issues preliminary refusals, Swift’s team could submit different specimens to better satisfy the use requirement.

Even if the trademarks are legally murky, they may still serve a practical purpose. Xiyin Tang, a law professor at UCLA, notes that federal registration can help “warn off unsophisticated infringers” by providing a registration number and certificate, even if the registration wouldn’t hold up in court. Swift already has other legal tools at her disposal, including right of publicity laws in several states and federal protections against false advertising and unauthorized endorsements. “Swift also has numerous trademark registrations for her name, so she can sue for federal trademark infringement if there’s a use of her name by someone else that creates a likelihood of confusion,” Roberts adds.

Currently, only Tennessee has enacted a law specifically targeting AI-generated vocal copycats. Even YouTube’s deepfake detection tool, which allows public figures to remove AI-generated lookalikes, only applies to facial likenesses so far. In the absence of a comprehensive legal framework for AI soundalikes, artists like Swift are turning to trademark law as a potential stopgap , hoping it can defend not just their faces, but their voices as well.