According to Matthew McConaughey's lawyers and an expert, this is the first instance of an actor using trademark law to protect their likeness from AI misuse.
Matthew McConaughey says it's no longer "alright, alright, alright" for AI to use his likeness.
The Oscar-winning actor has officially trademarked his image and voice, including his iconic three word catchphrase from the 1993 film Dazed and Confused.
According to The Wall Street Journal, McConaughey has secured eight separate approvals from the US Patent and Trademark Office in recent weeks. These cover everything from film clips of him standing on a porch, sitting in front of a tree, to an audio snippet of his signature line: “Alright, alright, alright" from the classic Richard Linkater comedy.
"My team and I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it’s because I approved and signed off on it. We want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world," the 56-year-old actor said in a statement.
Celebrity deepfakes spark growing controversy
This action comes amid a wave of high‑profile celebrity controversies surrounding AI deepfakes and likeness exploitation, which threaten to disrupt the film, music and wider entertainment industries.
Taylor Swift has repeatedly been targeted. In 2024, sexually explicit AI-generated deepfake images of her were widely circulated online, some seen millions of times before removal.
One fake picture posted on the platform was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended. The material was shared tens of thousands of times before X's security team responded: "We have a zero-tolerance policy towards such content. Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them."
Last year, actor Scarlett Johansson also publicly condemned a deepfake video depicting her and other celebrities in political messaging they never endorsed.
The AI-generated video featured more than a dozen AI-generated versions of Jewish celebrities, including Steven Spielberg, Jerry Seinfeld, Drake, David Schwimmer and Adam Sandler, each wearing t-shirts showing the Star of David alongside a hand giving the middle finger, in response to Kanye West's anti-semitic tirade.
“It has been brought to my attention by family members and friends, that an AI-generated video featuring my likeness, in response to an antisemitic view, has been circulating online and gaining traction,” Johansson said in a statement to People magazine.
“I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by AI is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it. We must call out the misuse of AI, no matter its messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality.”
Zelda Williams, the actress, filmmaker and daughter of late actor Robin Williams, has also spoken out, asking fans to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” she wrote in a post last year. “Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t. If you’re just trying to troll me, I’ve seen way worse, I’ll restrict and move on. But please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he’d want.”
And most recently, amid mounting pressure in Europe and abroad, Elon Musk’s X, formally Twitter, has announced “technological measures" to prevent its AI tool, Grok, from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis, a restriction that applies to all users, including paid subscribers.
The decision follows a global backlash over a mass wave of sexually explicit AI images and videos generated using Grok, including depictions of women and children.
Musk had previously said he was unaware of any “naked underage images” created by the AI tool.
