Voice ownership against deepfakes: Why political leaders are trademarking their tones

A four-second audio recording in which Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni repeats the phrase “I am Georgia” twice became an official document filed this week with the European Union Intellectual Property Office. Meloni did not resort to emergency criminal legislation; instead she chose the trademark route to protect her voice from deep-fake manipulation ahead of Italy’s general election scheduled for next year, establishing a precedent for using commercial-property law as a protective shield for politicians.

The move follows a series of attacks on the prime minister, who in 2024 demanded compensation of €100,000 (about £84,920) after fabricated pornographic clips of her face were circulated, and who warned in May about the consequences of deep-fake manipulation after AI-generated images of her in underwear spread online.The issue goes beyond the personal, as deep-fake technology is a dangerous tool that deceives, manipulates and can target anyone.Meloni commented on social media that she can defend herself while others cannot. Technically, rapid voice clones require only a few seconds of recordings to train models, whereas high-fidelity copies need hours to achieve convincing similarity.

Commercial voice protection is no longer limited to electoral campaigns. In January, American actor Matthew McConaughey registered his image and voice, and in April singer Taylor Swift filed three trademark applications in the United States covering a theatrical likeness and two audio clips to define herself. In the United Kingdom, more than eighty artists in August, including Matt Lucas, Hugh Bonneville and Nicola Coughlan, asked Prime Minister Andy Burnham to enact legislation granting every individual a legal right to own their voice to prevent its exploitation on AI platforms.

However, the commercial route raises a practical paradox in protection rules. Relying on a trademark catalogue provides immediate judicial authority for seizure and monetary compensation, yet it turns inherently human attributes into registered commercial assets, a remedy available to high-profile figures but not to broader segments of society. The chosen voice phrase “I am Georgia” is the title of Meloni’s 2021 biography and was linked to her political campaigns, giving her application a pre-existing commercial ownership cover that is difficult for ordinary individuals to replicate.

This shift moves the deep-fake battle directly into legal offices and executive administrations across the Gulf, Egypt and the Levant. In regional business environments, combating fabricated voices still relies on criminal complaints and cyber-crime legislation, remedies that only arrive after financial loss or market deception occurs. The European approach requires senior legal counsel at large corporations and Gulf banks to reassess the classification of CEOs’ and spokespersons’ identities, and to explore registering their vocal prints and corporate phrases as trademarks with intellectual-property agencies, turning defence from a slow criminal pursuit of fraudsters into a commercial-property dispute that enables immediate takedown and prompts platforms to block content proactively.

Relying on intellectual-property rights tests legal systems’ ability to keep pace with rapid voice generation.As sensitive political and commercial stakes draw near, Meloni’s choice shows that the public elite now prefer a ready-made commercial claim over awaiting lengthy criminal litigation, turning the voice into an independent legal asset subject to monopoly and economic-protection rules.