Taylor Swift files trade mark applications for voice recordings and a stage image - CJEU rules on copyright in retirement homes

Taylor Swift files trade mark applications for specific voice recordings and a stage image in the United States 

A week ago, US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift filed three trade mark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The applications are believed to be part of a strategy to strengthen her legal options against the misuse of her voice and image by AI. 

The three applications cover specific items rather than her voice or appearance in the abstract. Two of them are sound marks. One is a recording of Swift saying “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift”, taken from an Amazon Music Unlimited promotional clip. The other is a recording of her saying “Hey, it’s Taylor”, taken from a Spotify presave campaign. The third application is for a trade mark consisting of a photograph of Swift holding a pink guitar with a black strap and wearing a multicoloured iridescent bodysuit and silver boots on a pink stage in front of a purple-lit microphone. 

The filings follow a series of incidents in which AI-generated content has reproduced Swift’s likeness without her consent. This includes the circulation of explicit deepfake images online, as well as AI-created material that has falsely suggested her endorsement of a political candidate in the 2024 US presidential election. Under US trade mark law, a registered mark that functions as an indicator of origin, sponsorship, affiliation or endorsement can be enforced in federal courts. If registered, these marks could provide Swift with an additional legal basis for taking action in cases where unauthorised AI-generated content creates confusion regarding her identity or associations. However, they would not replace right-of-publicity claims, which remain the more direct route for challenging the exploitation of a person’s identity. 

Using sound marks to tackle the imitation of a natural person’s voice by AI remains a comparatively novel and legally untested strategy. Other public figures, including the US actor Matthew McConaughey, have filed similar applications. Tennessee was the first US state to recognise voice as a protected property right in 2024, and Arkansas, Montana, Pennsylvania and Utah enacted comparable measures the following year. 

In the European Union, sound marks can be registered at the EUIPO under EUTMR. Therefore, a comparable filing strategy for specific spoken phrases is available in principle. While the AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) does not grant specific rights to a person’s voice or likeness, it does impose transparency obligations on providers of AI systems that generate synthetic audio, image, video or text content. This also applies to deployers in cases involving deepfakes. 

CJEU confirms that this retirement-home retransmission did not require authorisation under Article 3(1) 

On 30 April 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) provided a response to an issue that had not yet been resolved at the EU level. Does a care home operator require a copyright licence to pipe satellite television and radio to residents' rooms via an internal cable network? In the specific circumstances of the case in question, the Court ruled that they did not. 

The case originated in Germany. GEMA, Germany’s music rights organisation, took legal action against VHC 2 Seniorenresidenz und Pflegeheim gGmbH, a care home for 89 elderly residents. VHC 2 receives television and radio broadcasts via its own satellite dish and distributes the signal simultaneously and without alteration through an internal cable network to sockets in residents' private rooms and care rooms. GEMA argued that retransmitting musical works from its repertoire in this manner required a licence. Following conflicting rulings in the German courts, the country’s highest civil court, the Bundesgerichtshof, referred the matter to the CJEU. 

Under EU copyright law, authors have the exclusive right to authorise any “communication to the public” of their works. Whether a retransmission counts as such depends on a two-part test. Either the operator uses a technically different and independent method from the original broadcast, such as retransmitting a satellite signal over the internet, or the retransmission reaches a 'new public', meaning an audience that the rights holders would not have considered when authorising the original broadcast. 

Regarding the first point, the Court considered that transmitting a satellite signal via an internal cable network does not constitute a distinct and independent transmission. In this context, it is no different to a hotel connecting its satellite dish to TV sockets in its rooms. However, something like an internet retransmission creates an entirely separate and new distribution pathway, which tips the scale. An internal cable system does not do this. 

This led the Court to address the real question: are care home residents a 'new public'? The idea is straightforward. When rights holders authorise a broadcast, they are thinking of ordinary viewers receiving it at home, either alone or with their families. If an operator then brings that same broadcast to a group who would not otherwise receive it as part of the normal viewing public, those people become a 'new public' and a licence is required. This is why retransmission may require authorisation in settings such as hotels, restaurants and short-term holiday apartments: the audience is not treated as part of the ordinary domestic public contemplated by the rights holders when authorising the original broadcast. 

Care home residents are in a different position. They live at the facility as long-term residents. The CJEU confirmed this in its June 2024 ruling on case C-135/23, which concerned apartments with indoor television aerials. In that case, the Court drew a clear distinction. Short-term tourist renters constitute a new public because they are transient visitors, whereas long-term residential tenants do not because they receive broadcasts in their own private sphere within the audience that rights holders had already anticipated. As permanent occupants, residents of a retirement home fall into the same category. 

For retirement home operators and other residential care facility providers across the EU, the ruling provides practical clarity. Retransmitting satellite broadcasts to residents' rooms via an internal cable network does not, in these circumstances, constitute a communication to the public requiring authorisation under Article 3(1) of the InfoSoc Directive. It is worth noting that the ruling applies only to the specific setup described in the case and that national law may impose additional obligations in this area.