{"id":2294,"date":"2024-08-19T19:32:26","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T19:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/can-taylor-swift-sue-donald-trump-over-ai-generated-false-endorsement\/"},"modified":"2024-08-19T19:32:26","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T19:32:26","slug":"can-taylor-swift-sue-donald-trump-over-ai-generated-false-endorsement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/can-taylor-swift-sue-donald-trump-over-ai-generated-false-endorsement\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Taylor Swift Sue Donald Trump Over AI-Generated False Endorsement?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tAfter Donald Trump<\/strong> posted AI-generated images to social media that falsely suggested Taylor Swift had endorsed him, can the superstar take legal action against the Republican presidential nominee? We asked the experts.<\/p>\n

\n\tPosted on Sunday (Aug. 18) to Trump\u2019s account on his own Truth Social platform, several of the photos showed women in t-shirts with the slogan \u201cSwifties for Trump\u201d emblazoned on the front. Some of those shots appeared to have been generated by AI, including several originally posted by a satire website.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the most prominent image showed Swift herself, dressed up as Uncle Sam in the style of a World War II-era recruiting poster, bearing a clear message: \u201cTaylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.\u201d At the top of the post, Trump himself responded to the apparent endorsement: \u201cI accept!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe images quickly sparked outrage among fans of the superstar singer, who has long been an outspoken critic of the 45th<\/sup> president. Though she has not yet endorsed a candidate in 2024, Swift supported Joe Biden<\/strong> and running mate Kamala Harris<\/strong> in 2020 \u2014 and she blasted Trump for \u201cstoking the fires of white supremacy and racism\u201d and urged her legions of fans to vote him out of office.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs news of Trump\u2019s post spread across the internet, many Swifties quickly wondered the same thing: Could Taylor take legal action against the former president?<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to Jessica Silbey<\/strong>, a professor at Boston University School of Law and an expert in intellectual property and constitutional law, Trump\u2019s fake endorsement post likely violates Swift\u2019s right of publicity \u2014 the legal power to control how your name, image and likeness are used by others.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEveryone enjoys a right of publicity,\u201d says Silbey, who has written extensively about the internet. \u201cThis kind of use \u2014 being made to say and seen as believing things you don\u2019t \u2014 is at the core of the right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the explosive growth of artificial intelligence tools has made it easier to convincingly mimic real people, lawmakers have scrambled to empower individuals like Swift to better protect their right of publicity. The federal NO FAKES Act, currently under debate in Congress, would make it illegal to publish a \u201cdigital replica\u201d of someone\u2019s likeness without their consent, including their voice or their image.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump\u2019s post \u2014 featuring a photorealistic, AI-generated replica of Swift\u2019s image without her consent \u2014 would almost certainly violate that new federal law. But even without the NO FAKES Act, states across the country already protect the right of publicity and would likely give Swift grounds to sue Trump or his campaign. Silbey says Swift might also explore suing him for defamation, claiming the false presidential endorsement harmed her reputation.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether the star should<\/em> do so is a different question. Such litigation would be long and costly and Trump has potential defense strategies, including pinning the blame on the people who originally created the images, or arguing that his posts were free speech shielded by the First Amendment. And even if Taylor won, it\u2019s hard to say whether it would be worth the effort to pull down one post.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m skeptical the juice would be worth the squeeze,\u201d says Woodrow Hartzog<\/strong>, another professor at Boston University School of Law.<\/p>\n

\n\tRather than responding with cease-and-desist letters or a lawsuit, Swift might decide that she\u2019s better off fighting Trump\u2019s fake endorsement with a legitimate <\/em>endorsement of her own, broadcast across social media to her millions of die-hard fans. That\u2019s the kind of remedy that no court can issue \u2014 and one that will likely hurt Trump far more than any judge could.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think Swift probably has more effective political rather than legal recourse here,\u201d\u00a0Hartzog said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Donald Trump posted AI-generated images to social media that falsely suggested Taylor Swift had endorsed him, can the superstar take legal action against the Republican presidential nominee? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[442,1570,3030,1880,440,3029,3028,409],"class_list":["post-2294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-aigenerated","tag-donald","tag-endorsement","tag-false","tag-sue","tag-swift","tag-taylor","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}