Taylor Swift Files Trademark for Voice and Likeness Amid AI Concern
Taylor Swift keeps her side of the street clean, and this latest deal is proof.
As the “Karma” singer’s record label Universal Music Group prepares to sell nearly $1.4 billion of its stake in Spotify, a clause in her 2018 record deal ensures that all of the label’s artists will see the pay day.
Take a deep breath as we walk through how Taylor accomplished all of this: When the 36-year-old signed with UMG in 2018 shortly after the release of Reputation, both Sony Music and Warner Music Group had recently sold their stake in Spotify. Any artists and bands managed by Sony at the time received payment from the deal regardless of whether they owed any money back to the label for their original record deal. However, months later, Warner only paid out the artists under their label that had already recouped all of the money from their original deal—meaning the label earned more profit off of artists from the sale.
Thankfully, the stars aligned and Taylor ended up in the same room as UMG at the same time all of this was happening. As part of her negotiation process for her record deal, she asked that UMG ensure they follow Sony’s lead—and make any future sale of their Spotify shares non-recoupable, meaning artists both big and small would benefit from a future sale.
Now, UMG is preparing to sell half of its stake in Spotify, meaning Taylor’s negotiation will come into fruition and benefit not only her, but all artists under the label. Other acts under the UMG umbrella include Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, SZA, Ariana Grande and hundreds of more names, both big and small.
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Of course, this isn’t the first time Taylor has negotiated on behalf of others. In fact, it goes back even further than her landmark rerecording project that inspired artists to look at the fine print of their record deals. In 2014, she pulled her music from streaming services to protest the lack of a payday for artists per stream. The following year, she published an open letter to Apple Music upon its launch, slamming that their three-month trial period for users would keep artists from getting payouts for streaming.
“This is not about me,” Taylor wrote in the note. “Thankfully, I am on my fifth album and I can support myself, my band, crew and entire management team by playing live shows. This is about the new artists who just released their first singles and will not be paid for its success.”
The risky public call out actually got Apple Music to reverse its policy in less than 24 hours and Taylor ended up allowing her music to stream on Apple afterward.
“I am elated and relieved,” Taylor wrote in a post on X at the time. “Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us.”
Taylor’s legacy has been defined by many things—including her fight for artists' rights. Keep reading for more about her life and career…
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1. While Taylor Swift writes all of her own music, she specifically wrote her entire Speak Now album all by herself. No co-writers, just her. The album was released in Oct. 2010, when Taylor was just 20.
2. She grew up on a Christmas tree farm with her family in Pennsylvania. She references her time there on her holiday song of the same name.
3. She's named after James Taylor. That's right, from one music legend to another.
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4. She's a former Abercrombie model. Just like fellow stars Channing Tatum, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Roberts and Ashton Kutcher, T.Swift modeled for the company in 2003.
5. She gave Eric Church her first gold record. Back in 2006, she joined Rascal Flatts on their tour after Church was fired. "Actually, she called me after I got fired. I read in the paper that we were fired. She called and said 'I want you to know that I love what you do,'" Church previously told the Arizona Daily Star. "I joked with her, 'This is your crowd; they're going to love you. You're going to owe me your first gold record.' I was kidding, but when she got her first gold record she gave me one. It came with a note: 'Thanks for playing too long and too loud on the Flatts tour. I sincerely appreciate it. Taylor.'"
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6. She has doubled-jointed elbows. During her 2016 Vogue 73 questions video, Taylor was asked if she has any "really cool or bizarre" talents. In response, she said, "OK, I'm well aware that this is not a talent, but this is like the only thing that I can do. I have double-jointed elbows."
7. Her drink of choice? Vodka and Diet Coke, as revealed in that same Vogue video.
8. She turned off her comments on social media to "block some of the noise." In her essay for Elle, entitled "30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30," Taylor explained, "social media can be great, but it can also inundate your brain with images of what you aren't, how you're failing, or who is in a cooler locale than you at any given moment. One thing I do to lessen this weird insecurity laser beam is to turn off comments. Yes, I keep comments off on my posts. That way, I'm showing my friends and fans updates on my life, but I'm training my brain to not need the validation of someone telling me that I look [fire emojis]."
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9. She was originally going to name her seventh studio album Daylight before landing on Lover. But since the album was the follow-up to reputation, the singer thought the name Daylight would be a little too on the nose. So, when Taylor wrote the song "Lover," she decided that would be the name of the album.
10. She's the youngest solo artist to win Album of the Year. T.Swift was just 20 when she won the top honors in 2010 for her beloved album, Fearless.
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11. Taylor made history at the 2024 Grammys, becoming the first female artist to win Album of the Year four times. (For Fearless, 1989, Folklore and Midnights.)
12. The singer's album, Lover, sold over 1 million pure copies in the United States in its first few months alone, according to Chart Data. This was the first album to reach this milestone in 2019.
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13. More historic milestones! At the 2019 American Music Awards, Taylor surpassed Michael Jackson's record to become the most awarded artist at the AMAs.
14. As a child, Taylor wanted to be a stockbroker, just like her dad! But she went on to find her true calling in music, later moving from Pennsylvania to Tennessee with her family to kick off her career.
15. She learned to play guitar around the age of 12 after learning a few chords from a technician who was fixing her computer. She then went on to write her first song, "Lucky You."
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16. She's "obsessed" with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. While talking about her love for Fleabag, Taylor told Entertainment Weekly, "She makes you crack up, shocks you, and breaks your heart all in the span of a few minutes in that show." Taylor later performed on the SNL episode which the Amazon Prime star hosted!
17. She wrote her own monologue for her appearance on Saturday Night Live in 2009, which doesn't usually happen with celeb guests. Taylor clearly impressed the team with "Monologue Song (La La La)."
18. She's been BFFs with Selena Gomez since their respective relationships with the Jonas Brothers. (ICYMI, SelGo even supported her best friend in Nov. 2021 when she returned to SNL to perform the 10-minute version of "All Too Well.") Back in 2008, Taylor spent time with Joe Jonas, while Gomez dated his younger brother, Nick Jonas. The two quickly became close pals, and have remained tight to this day. Taylor even offered to be the flower girl in Gomez's wedding to fiance Benny Blanco.
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19. Remember the "redhead named Abigail" that Taylor references in "Fifteen," her beloved song about growing up? Well, she and Taylor are still BFFs, too! Abigail Anderson is her name, and Taylor was a bridesmaid in her wedding in 2017.
20. She's a godmother, holding that distinction for pal Jaime King's son Leo Thames and BFF Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds' daughters James, Inez and Betty.
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21. Taylor has said that she may never perform her song "Soon You'll Get Better," which is about her mother's cancer battle. During a Q&A session in Aug. 2019, as part of a SiriusXM Town Hall special, she shared, "It was hard to write, it's hard to sing. It's hard to listen to for me, but sometimes music is like that."
22. She doesn't have X, formerly known as Twitter, on her phone. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor explained, "Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven't had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don't like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that's it. But I don't like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There's only so much bandwidth my brain can really have."
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23. She's never been to therapy. "I talk to my mom a lot, because my mom is the one who's seen everything," Taylor told Rolling Stone in Sept. 2019. "God, it takes so long to download somebody on the last 29 years of my life, and my mom has seen it all."
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24. According to an interview, her favorite lyrics off of her Lover album are, "Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? / With every guitar string scar on my hand/I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover."
25. Taylor is a billionaire! According to an Oct. 2024 report published by Bloomberg, after breaking records in the industry for over a decade, Taylor's Eras Tour helped her achieve billionaire status.
26. The 2019 Netflix film, Someone Great, inspired her music, "I cried watching the movie. For about a week, I start waking up from dreams that I'm living out that scenario—that that's happening to me," she told Elvis Duran during an interview. "I'd have these lyrics in my head based on the dynamics of these characters and I went in the studio with Jack Antonoff." The studio session led to the creation of Taylor's song, "Death By a Thousand Cuts."
27. She has a special place for her most emotional songs. From "All Too Well" to "The Archer," the superstar reserves the fifth spot on her albums for a ballad.
28. She's over hiding from cameras: In fact, she's proudly supported fiancé Travis Kelce at NFL games since 2023. “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she told Time. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other."
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29. Speaking of Travis, when Taylor and the NFL star announced their engagement on Instagram in Aug. 2025, it made history on the platform, with Billboard—citing date from Meta—reporting that it received over a million reposts.
30. The engagement also helped inspire Cambridge Dictionary’s 2025 word of the year, "Parasocial."
31. Taylor made history following the Oct. 2025 release of her album, The Life of a Showgirl, which sold 2.7 million copies in its first day of release, according to the AP.
32. Oh, and the album went on to sell 4 million copies in its first week alone.
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33. In The End of an Era, her Disney+ docuseries, Taylor said that two factors led to the creation of The Eras Tour: The sale of her masters and the pandemic.
34. After a years-long battle, Taylor shared in May 2025 that she'd obtained the master recordings of her first six albums.
"That's how I spent that Eras Tour money," Taylor shared on The Stephen Colbert Show Dec. 10. "My fans are why I was able to get my music back."
35. Taylor and her Eras band rehearsed surprise songs "quietly" on the tour so that fans outside the stadiums wouldn't hear.
36. At the end of each leg of the Eras Tour, Taylor gifted her crew bonuses, her docuseries confirmed.
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