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BY Janine Thomas
Matthew McConaughey fights back: A high profile stand for trade mark protection in the AI era
What follows is not your bog-standard intellectual property ("IP") report. No, no, no… as the wonderful Rowan Atkinson might have said, this is so much more than a mere case report… it’s a veritable overview of recent interesting (but not always charming!) developments in artificial intelligence ("AI"), fake materials and IP law. There’s frequent mention of the actor Matthew McConaughey, but in no particular order, here goes…
Let’s talk trade marks, particularly a voice
McConaughey has applied to register (“trade-marked” as some would have it) his voice and image at the US Patent and Trademark Office including the clip, ‘alright, alright, alright’ that he used in the 1993 film Dazed and Confused (not me I’m afraid, perhaps a tad confused, but a long way from dazed!).
A report tells us that the application was filed in December 2023, and approved in December 2025 - his done this for a very good reason - to protect his voice and image from unauthorised use by AI platforms.
Let’s talk more about AI, deep fakes, sexually explicit images… all that charming stuff
The report goes on to tell us there’s much more going on:
- A first: This is apparently the first time an actor has sought to register their voice to protect it from misuse.
- Trade marks as a potential solution? : it seem that there are no ‘current examples of McConaughey's likeness being manipulated by AI’ although, we’re told, there is hope that ‘the trademarks could be used broadly against any unauthorised copies of him’.
- A wave of fakes: Stars across Hollywood and the music industry, including Scarlett Johansson and Taylor Swift, have ‘endured a wave of fake video, audio and images online, created by AI tools’.
- Respect for rights: There’s talk of capturing ‘some of the value that is being created with this new technology’. McConaughey has said this: ‘I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it's because I approved and signed off on it.’ He’s further said that he wants to ‘create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution being the norm in an AI world.’
- Experimenting: A professor in copyright law at University College London, Alina Trapova, has said that AI is a big problem for celebrities, saying that they may object to unauthorised AI ‘due to reputational reasons’. She has further said that celebrities are experimenting with different forms of protection as ‘unauthorised commercialisation’ of their likeness in the forms of deepfakes becomes ‘more and more challenging in the age of AI’.
- Taylor Swift - the example: A You Tube video that depicted Taylor Swift went viral and was seen by millions, but it turned out that it didn’t come from her at all.
- AI opportunities: McConaughey actually has a stake in a software company (ElevenLabs) that specialises in AI voice modelling. A professor of technology and regulation at the University of Oxford, Dr Sandra Wachter, says she would not be surprised if others in the creative industries did the same as McConaughey in the future. ‘It is simple for companies to take your work and train a model to do your job. It is comparatively difficult for you to protect your work in the first place.’
- AI images and deepfakes are of growing concern in the entertainment world, and there’s talk of a ‘bottomless pit of plagiarism’. There’s mention of the X social media platform making a ‘deliberate choice ‘to create sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift’.
- Some caution: We are told that ‘many celebrities have spoken out about AI in recent years’ – Tom Hanks apparently issued a public service announcement warning followers not be fooled by adverts using his likeness without permission.
Final word
The final word probably is a long way off! For now, creators are clearly taking a stand to protect their IP rights, and rightfully so! It is exciting and interesting to see how creative we can become using existing IP laws to adapt to the ever evolving AI space – and it is important - as world moves deeper into the age of AI, ideally, that we find a space where both can co-exist… (peacefully, we hope!).
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp87z6vexl3o
Janine Thomas
Executive | Intellectual Property
