{"id":4586,"date":"2024-08-21T00:34:14","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T00:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=4586"},"modified":"2024-08-21T00:34:14","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T00:34:14","slug":"experts-say-that-taylor-swift-can-sue-donald-trump-over-ai-generated-false-endorsement-that-he-posted-on-his-social-platform-truth-social","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=4586","title":{"rendered":"Experts say that Taylor Swift can sue Donald Trump Over AI-Generated False Endorsement that he posted on his social platform, Truth Social…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Experts say Swift likely has grounds to file a lawsuit over the phony endorsement, but that she might be better off responding with political activism rather than legal action.<\/p>\n

\"Taylor<\/p>\n

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Taylor Swift performs onstage during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at Wembley Stadium on August 15, 2024 in London, England.\u00a0Gareth Cattermole\/TAS24\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

A<\/strong><\/p>\n

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After\u00a0Donald Trump<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0posted AI-generated images<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to social media that falsely suggested\u00a0Taylor Swift\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>had endorsed him, can the superstar take legal action against the Republican presidential nominee? We asked the experts.<\/p>\n

Posted 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

But 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

The images quickly sparked outrage among fans of the superstar singer, who has long been an outspoken critic of the 45th<\/sup>\u00a0president. Though she has not yet endorsed a candidate in 2024, Swift\u00a0supported\u00a0Joe Biden<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and running mate\u00a0Kamala Harris<\/strong>\u00a0in 2020 \u2014 and\u00a0she blasted Trump<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for \u201cstoking the fires of white supremacy and racism\u201d and urged her legions of fans to vote him out of office.<\/p>\n

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As 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

According to\u00a0Jessica 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

\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

As 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\u00a0NO FAKES Act<\/strong><\/a>, 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

Trump\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

Whether the star\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0do 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

\u201cI\u2019m skeptical the juice would be worth the squeeze,\u201d says\u00a0Woodrow Hartzog<\/strong>, another professor at Boston University School of Law.<\/p>\n

Rather 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\u00a0legitimate\u00a0<\/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

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

Experts say Swift likely has grounds to file a lawsuit over the phony endorsement, but that she might be better off responding with political activism rather than legal action.   … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4588,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions\/4588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}