Lionel Richie trademarks his voice | Matt Connnarton Unleashed

0:00 This relates to another thing we talked about recently on the show about who owns your voice, And we talked about this with that whole that story we did. Maybe it was a month ago, the estate of Johnny Cash suing Coca Cola because Coca Cola had some commercials that there's a guy singing in the commercial that kind of sounds a little like Johnny Cash, but to me, did not sound enough like Johnny Cash to you know, to justify the claim that the estate was making in their lawsuit that that Coca Cola intentionally hired a sound alike singer to fool people into thinking that it was Johnny Cash's voice in the commercial.

0:43 To me, it's somebody singing kind of in the style of Johnny Cash, which it doesn't sound like him. But that opened up a discussion on the show about your voice, owning your voice. You know, obviously everyone you know, whether you're doing anything creative or not or you know, it doesn't matter who you are, you own the rights to your own likeness. You know, somebody can't just take and use your likeness, a visual image of you and just use it for whatever they want to, right, That's that's illegal.

1:12 You own your likeness. No matter who you are, whether you're famous not famous, whatever, you own your likeness. You own what you create, you own your own. If you great music, you own your music. If you create something else, you own it. You own that right. But what about your voice? What about your voice? And there was something that came up on the show several months ago. I can't remember the name of the company, but Scarlet Johansson was suing a company that had an app that they created. They wanted Scarlett Johansson's voice to be the voice of the app.

1:42 She said, no, next thing, you know, you can hear her voice on the app because apparently they hired an actress who sounded whose voice sounded very similar to that of Scarlett Johanson or re lease. This is what they claimed. But she was claiming that, no, they just made an AI generated version of my voice. So she sued them and I think she won. They settled or something. But who owns your voice? And it is tricky. It is tricky because some people sound similar. You know, you might think you have a very distinctive voice.

2:12 Nobody else sounds like you. But guess what, there's somebody out there who does. This is from Digital Musicnews dot Com. This is fascinating to me, and again, I don't think any of this were we not in the AI era, and very early in the AI era of things, I don't think any of this would be happening, including what I'm about to read here from Digital Musicnews dot Com. I don't think any of this would be happening were we not in the AI era. Lionel Richie moves to trademark his voice, filing sound mark applications for easy like Sunday Morning and more.

2:48 By the way, a sound mark application with the Trademark Office. That's usually for things like you know, you can trademark sounds. I mean, obviously you can trademark songs, but you can also trademark other things like d that belongs to NBC, that's their you know, little song that you might hear at the end of a show, or something you know you can But he's actually filing a trademark application, a sound mark application specifically for his voice. That says here in the era of voice trademarks upon us.

3:20 It seems that way as Lionel Richie has become the latest entertainment professional to file related applications amid AI's rapid expansion. Specifically, Richie moved to obtain the trademarks yesterday, joining the likes of Taylor Swift and Matthew McConaughey, both of whom have sought voice and Likeness trademarks as of late. According to the filings, Richie is specifically seeking sound marks for snippets of his famed song lyrics Hello is it me? You're looking for? Say you say me easy? Like Sunday Morning and all night long.

3:51 Unsurprisingly, all the applications mentioned a man saying the lyrics and connection with, among other things, entertainment, information services, stage performances, interviews, and related websites. These specific usages aside, it's not a secret that the aforesaid AI, which is pumping out all manner of sound alike and look like media, played a key part in Richie's submitting the applications. But will they receive USPTO approval? If so, how exactly would the four time Grammy winner look to protect his IP intellectual property undercurrent trademark law.

4:28 See, we're't a whole new realm here. There's a lot of lawyers, But boy, what a great time to be an attorney. They're going to make a lot of money in the AI era. Admittedly, again getting back to the article here, admittedly we lack definitive answers here On the former front, gurban Ip pointed to the possibility of Richie and others encountering significant legal hurdles with the here to four Little Scene applications. A few adjacent questions, as these applications are seeking to protect actual voices.

5:00 What happens when and this is my question that I keep raising, what happens when similar sounding entertainers come along? Is this a first come, first served situation that will leave future generations out of luck? And what of existing voice overlap among public figures generally? Nevertheless, McConaughey has already secured several trademarks is Hey Hey Hey application was filed back in twenty twenty three. Furthermore, despite the enforceability questions, it's always possible that voice and likeness trademarks will prove useful in courtroom confrontations down the line.

5:40 That ties back to another unknown how the NIL focus will evolve in the approaching years between the AI and music related music investment explosions. It seems safe to say that there's never been a bigger emphasis on the rights. Time will tell how this and the corresponding trademark process evolves in the coming years. There's also the chance that Congress will update voice and Likeness law for the AI era What can go wrong? A modified version of the No Fakes Act, the prior iteration of which sputtered out in committee, was introduced last month.

6:15 By the way, just a quick sidebar on that before we wrap this up, because we do need to show some love to our amazing sponsors. But I'm always nervous when we talk about Congress making laws involving any kind of technology, even though it's obviously necessary. Because and if you don't know why I'm scared about that and why it concerns me, I challenge anyone go on YouTube and find an example. Find a YouTube of Congress people at a committee hearing asking questions of somebody like you know, like Mark Zuckerberg, for example.

6:58 That's an easy one to find. He's testified I think on more than one occasion before congressional committees. Find Saturday Night Live even oh wait, no, it was bad lip reading, did something about that. But find a video of congress people asking at a committee hearing questions about tech, or if you want to be specific, look up, Look up Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress or whatever. And listen to the questions these people ask, and you will immediately And I'm not saying all of them, by the way, some some are well informed and ask good questions, but some don't, And you will immediately become concerned.

7:37 I promise you. If this is not your reaction, there's something wrong with you. You should immediately become concerned about. You know, some of these you know, septagenarian octogenarian people. Not to be agist, but some of the questions that they ask. When you realize that these are the people who are going to make laws about something that they don't and cannot and will not ever understand. When you listen to some of the questions and how confused they are, it's it always makes me so nervous. So maybe it's just as well that the no fakes act.

8:12 Well, it might be something that I would support in theory and spirit and judgment, but maybe it's just as well that it's sputtered out because who knows what was actually in it? And uh, and there's probably a bunch of things in it that didn't even apply to the problem at hand, because that happens a lot