There has been a lot of agita in 2026 from people objecting to the use of their image, voice, story, music, or sculpture without permission. Here is a summary of the 2026 developments:
- ** Hey, That’s My Voice!** Several class actions were filed by broadcast reporters, podcasters, narrators, and voice actors against Google and other tech companies for using the plaintiffs’ voices to train their AI systems. The cases allege three different claims: (a) violation of state laws that prohibit the use of someone’s biometric data (including voice) without consent, (b) violation of their right of publicity due to output that sounds like them, and (c) violation of their right of publicity by merely uploading their voices. The last claim is analogous to the numerous claims alleging copyright infringement due to uploading copyrighted content by AI companies, and it will be interesting to see if the fair use defense being used in such cases will be applied by analogy to these new right of publicity cases.
2.
Dua Lipa sued Samsung for $15 million for including her easily recognizable face on packaging for TV screens without her permission. She is suing for both violation of her right of publicity and under the Lanham Act for falsely implying that she endorsed the product by including her picture on the package.
__Hey, That’s My Face!__3.
The children of deceased baseball legend Roberto Clemente sued Puerto Rico for issuing a commemorative license plate bearing his name and likeness.
__Hey, That’s My Dad!__4.
Two Miami sheriff deputies filed a lawsuit for defamation against the production company owned by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, claiming the actors’ portrayal in a film called “Rip” made the deputies look like “dirty cops.” The difficult part of the lawsuit for the deputies is that (a) they were not named in the film and (b) although the film had a title card stating that it was “inspired by true events,” it was clearly a dramatic fictionalization, and to prove defamation, the defamatory statements must be reasonably understood to be statements of fact.
__Hey, That’s My Story!__5.
In an effort to sidestep the foibles and uncertainties of relying on the right of publicity under state law, Taylor Swift filed trademarks of (a) her voice saying, “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift” and (b) a picture of herself performing. By doing so, she is following in the footsteps of Matthew McConaughey, who previously filed trademarks for his signature voice and catchphrases. While I applaud the effort to protect voice and likeness under uniform federal law (as opposed to the spotty patchwork of state law), trademark law just doesn’t do the trick, since all it protects against is consumer confusion as to the source of a product or service, not just the unauthorized use of someone’s voice or image for some other purpose, such as in an AI-generated audio-visual work. Alas, that is left to the right of publicity, which is subject to a number of questionable defenses. What this effort points to is the need for a federal right of publicity statute, like the languishing NO FAKES bill.
__Hey, That’s My Trademark!__6.
The American Federation of Musicians (“AFM”) sued two large record companies for not paying AFM musicians a share of revenue the record companies received for licensing music created by the musicians to AI companies for the AI companies to use to permit customers to “create” their own music. The AFM sued for breach of contract, claiming that the record companies were contractually required to compensate the musicians for any “new use” of their music and that the license of the music to AI companies was a “new use.”
__Hey, That’s My Music!__7.
A sculpture artist sued a sculpture garden for removing and destroying a sculpture the artist had created for the sculpture garden. The artist is suing for conversion, negligence, breach of contract, and violation of the federal Visual Artists Rights A
Hey, That’s My Sculpture!