Lionel Richie has applied for trademarks on the sound of his voice, including his iconic song lyric “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”
The legendary singer filed four applications Thursday (June 11) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, covering sound recordings of his voice singing choruses to his famous songs, also including “Say You, Say Me,” “Easy Like Sunday Morning” and “All Night Long.”
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Trademarks on sounds — like the NBC chimes or the Netflix “tuh-dum” noise — are historically rare. But music giants like Taylor Swift and movie stars like Matthew McConaughey have recently applied for them out of growing fears over voice cloning, unauthorized AI training and other threats.
The filings, obtained and reviewed by Billboard, were first reported by Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney unaffiliated with the matter. Gerben tells Billboard that such efforts are part of a broader effort to confront “the most significant threat that musical artists have faced since Napster.”
“Left unchecked, the AI platforms could use the artists’ images and voices to create any type of content imaginable. This could lead to revenue losses and reputational damage,” Gerben says. “The goal of the trademark filings is to keep the AI platforms in check by prohibiting them from allowing users to create content that looks like or sounds like the artist.”
Richie’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday (June 12).
The growth of AI technology has made it far easier to mimic voices and create fake videos, flooding the internet with such misleading content and leaving stars with little recourse. An individual’s name, likeness and even voice have historically been guarded via so-called publicity rights, but those rights are only protected under a patchwork of state laws and come with key limitations.
In the absence of stronger safeguards, stars have increasingly turned to trademarks. Swift applied in April to register her voice saying “Hey, it’s Taylor” and “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift.” Last year, McConaughey sought protection over audio of him saying his famous “Alright, alright, alright” from the film Dazed and Confused.
It’s unclear how effective such efforts will be. Trademark law is more aimed at protecting brand names, logos and other symbols that help consumers find a particular product. It doesn’t give blanket protection to a person’s overall identity. For instance, it’s far from certain that Richie’s sound trademarks would give him any power to stop someone from using his voice but for different words.
They also face hurdles just to get the trademarks in the first place. To win a federal registration, an applicant like Richie must prove that consumers associate his sought-after trademark — in this case, his voice saying the specific lyrics — with particular goods or services. Gerber says his lawyers might face an uphill on that front.
“Whether Richie’s applications ultimately succeed remains an open question,” he says. “From a technical trademark perspective, these filings will be challenging because the USPTO will expect evidence that the sounds function as trademarks rather than simply famous lyrics.”
That Richie and Swift are nonetheless turning to such unproven methods is a sign of the lack of true legal protections as the problem of AI deepfakes and voice cloning grows. Publicity rights vary from state-to-state and have historically often only applied to unauthorized advertisements and endorsements. Lawmakers in Congress have proposed a federal NO FAKES Act to offer stronger safeguards at a national level, but have so far made little progress passing it.
“Filings like this are early moves in a much bigger shift,” Ruth Zive, CMO of Voices, a voice-over platform, tells Billboard. “What Richie is really establishing is provenance: proof that a voice came from a specific person who authorized its use. The infrastructure to solve that has to be built at the platform level, with clear consent, documented agreements, and fair compensation before a voice ever gets used.”
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