Matthew McConaughey is an iconic actor in films such as Interstellar, Dallas Buyer’s Club and Dazed and Confused. His easy-going acting has become a staple of comedians with his catchphrase “alright alright alright” being a familiar phrase to Hollywood movie fans.
With generative artificial intelligence (AI) being widely used in software such as Sora, McConaughey has filed for a trademark on himself to ensure that he will not be cloned without permission using AI.
The eight trademarks received are in the form of frequently uttered phrases, voice styles, speech styles and several video clips of himself. McConaughey’s move may be the first by a celebrity to protect his personal image rights in the AI world, which is different from the copyright laws that were promulgated before the AI era.
Although the trademark was filed, McConaughey and Michael Caine agreed last year to allow their voices to be used to generate audio through ElevenLabs’ generative artificial intelligence (AI) system. In McConaughey's case, ElevenLabs technology was used to generate Spanish-language audio for his published Lyrics of Livin' newsletter.
