Taylor Swift May Sue Donald Trump Over AI-Generated Endorsement Claims

Thanks to a new Tennessee law designed to combat deep counterfeiting and digital replicas, Taylor Swift could sue former President Donald Trump over his recent social media posts.

The Republican presidential candidate — who has spoke favorably of Swift in the past – reposted a series of images created with artificial intelligence on his social media platform, Social Truth.

Trump’s post highlighted an image showing Swift’s fans voting for Trump, which was labeled as satire, while two others included a real woman. identified by Wired like Jenna Piwowarczyk, who sells homemade “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts. But the one most likely to land him in hot water featured Swift dressed as Uncle Sam, with the caption: “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.”

“I accept,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, apparently suggesting he had Swift’s approval.

Swift last made an endorsement in 2020, when she he supported Joe Biden over Trump.

Trump’s post could be all it takes to give Swift’s team grounds to sue Trump under Tennessee’s Ensuring the likeness of the Voice and Image Security Actor the ELVIS Act. The law protects against “almost any unauthorized impersonation of a person’s voice or appearance,” it said Joseph Fishmanprofessor of law at Vanderbilt University.

“It doesn’t matter if an image is generated by AI or not, and it also doesn’t matter if people are actually confused by it or not,” Fishman said. “In fact, the image doesn’t even have to be fake — it could be a real photo, as long as the person sharing it knows that the subject of the photo hasn’t authorized the use.”

But the ELVIS Act has not been tested in court since it was signed into law just five months ago and entered into force on July 1. That means any potential lawsuit would be entering uncharted legal waters.

While it appears that reposting those images would satisfy the law, Trump could “play dumb” and wonder if he knew Swift didn’t endorse him or that the image was fake, he said Jin Yoshikawaa Tennessee intellectual property attorney at Adams and Reese. Trump could also invoke First Amendment protections and argue that his post was satirical or an exaggeration meant to provoke or convey a message.

“This is Donald Trump’s modus operandi, to ask others to ignore what he said or did and see instead what he ‘really’ meant,” Yoshikawa said. “It draws on the imperfection and flexibility of human expression and takes advantage of the gray area between artistic expression and statements of fact.”

One statement posted on X, former Twitter, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung wrote that “Swifties for Trump is a massive movement growing every day.”

Swift and her team have yet to publicly comment on the situation.

While Swift could theoretically sue the former president under the ELVIS Act, that doesn’t mean she will.

In addition to Tennessee, nine other states have similar legislation to regulate deepfakes, and there are federal provisions against trademark infringement, false advertising and false claims of endorsement. Any legal action would likely be expensive – both in time and at the bank.

“In this particular case, a trial would likely be bogged down by defenses if this were to be treated as acceptable satire, but the claim would not be unreasonable.” Fishman said. “However, allegations of publicity rights in campaign contexts tend to be resolved through angry press releases and public shaming rather than through formal legal proceedings.”