In a World of AI, Intellectual Property Rights Must Be Protected
World Intellectual Property (IP) Day is always an opportunity to reiterate the significance of the only property right protected in the Constitution. Celebrated every April 26, the festivities home in on a particular aspect of IP. The 2025 theme is “IP and Music: Feel the beat of IP.”
Every nation has its own beat and rhythm, but the connecting thread of the sounds made by people makes everyone feel more human. However, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have made it easier to imitate a performer’s voice, style, and music composition and fool listeners into believing they are hearing a person instead of a clone or replication. A person’s voice and their image are unique to them, but AI programs are rapidly increasing the availability of fake performances and other recordings.
An online search on “AI replication of music” offers many programs that replicate music styles of performers who are both alive and deceased. These unauthorized recordings hurt consumers by misleading them into purchasing what they believe to be genuine recordings and hurt performers who receive no compensation for the illegal use of their voice or image. These abuses of IP have far-reaching ramifications, including economic and societal harms. The rights to thoughts, words, and appearance belong to the individual and their exploitation by AI programmers must be repudiated.
In the 118th Congress, several bills were introduced to protect musicians, artists, and creators from AI technology, including S. 4875 and H.R. 9551, the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act of 2024. On April 11, 2025, the bipartisan NO FAKES Act was reintroduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 2794 and the Senate as S. 1367. As noted by one of the bill’s original-co-sponsors, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), “While AI has opened the door to countless innovations, it has also exposed creators and other vulnerable individuals to online harms … Tennessee’s creative community is recognized around the globe, and the NO FAKES Act would help protect these individuals from the misuse and abuse of generative AI by holding those responsible for deepfake content to account.” Another original co-sponsor, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), stated, “Nobody – whether they’re Tom Hanks or an 8th grader just trying to be a kid – should worry about someone stealing their voice and likeness. … Incredible technology like AI can help us push the limits on human creativity, but only if we protect Americans from those who would use it to harm our communities.”
World IP Day is a chance to reflect on the power of music to bind humanity together. It is also prime time to consider how to protect the property of artists and creators while enabling technical innovations like AI to evolve.
