The “AI Barbie” trend became a viral sensation in early 2025 as millions of users uploaded selfies into generative tools that transformed them into Barbie-style avatars, complete with pink packaging and captions like “This Barbie is a Privacy Lawyer.”[i] Mattel, Inc. (“Mattel”), owner of Barbie since 1959, suddenly saw its product remixed at a massive scale, blurring play and publicity while raising Intellectual Property (“IP”) questions.[ii] Marketed as harmless fun, the trend nevertheless implicates copyright’s derivative work rights, trademark dilution, and global debates over Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) authorship. For Mattel, long protective of its brand, the challenge is enforcing its rights without overreach. More broadly, AI Barbie illustrates how viral culture collides with doctrines designed for an analog era.

When users dress themselves in Barbie’s likeness, the first legal seam stretches into copyright infringement. Section 106(2) of the Copyright Act grants authors the exclusive right to prepare derivative works based on their originals, and Barbie’s distinctive aesthetic—facial features, hair, fashion, and packaging—falls within that protection.[iii] Courts have limited this right through fair use, codified in Section 107, when works transform Barbie for commentary.[iv] This doctrine let courts protect parodic and satirical treatments, even when those works borrowed heavily from Mattel.[v]

AI Barbie presents a harder case for fair use. Section 107 directs courts to weigh four factors: (1) purpose and character; (2) nature of the work; (3) amount used; and (4) market effect.[vi] The first factor weighs heavily against AI Barbie avatars.  Unlike the parodies or satire in previous cases, these avatars serve no critical function. They simply reproduce Barbie’s image to insert a user’s likeness into the brand’s visual code. The purpose is entertainment, and the commercial nature of premium AI Barbie features further undermines fair use.

The second fair use factor considers the nature of the copyrighted work.[vii] Courts often allow broader use of factual works, but Barbie’s design is purely expressive, making this factor weigh against fair use.[viii] The third factor evaluates the amount and substantiality of use.[ix] By appropriating Barbie’s logo, packaging, and figure, AI Barbie tools copy the very “heart” of the work, which courts treat as weighing against fair use.[x] The fourth factor looks to market effect.[xi] Because Mattel aggressively licenses Barbie imagery for promotions, merchandise, and collaborations, unlicensed viral avatars directly threaten both existing and potential revenue streams.[xii] Taken together, the four factors strongly suggest infringement rather than fair use.

Once Barbie’s name and image are coded into AI avatars, the fabric of trademark protection comes into play. Under the Lanham Act, Barbie qualifies as a famous mark, which gives Mattel expansive protections.[xiii] Section 43(a) prohibits false endorsement, while Section 43(c) creates dilution claims.[xiv] Dilution includes tarnishment, which links a mark to unsavory content, and blurring, eroding distinctiveness.[xv] AI Barbie tools generated countless outputs that altered Barbie’s wholesome image, including sexualized or distorted avatars that risk tarnishment. Even seemingly harmless outputs contribute to blurring the brand’s association with official Mattel products. In Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, the Supreme Court emphasized that dilution harms exist even in the absence of consumer confusion.[xvi] The viral scale of AI Barbie amplifies this threat by multiplying unlicensed uses across digital platforms.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that while users risk infringing Mattel’s rights, their own AI-generated avatars may not qualify for copyright protection at all. The U.S. Copyright Office has issued guidance requiring disclosure of AI assistance in registrations and stressing that only human contributions qualify for protection.[xvii] In Thaler v. Perlmutter, the D.C. Circuit held that a work generated entirely by AI cannot be copyrighted because the Copyright Act presumes a human author.[xviii] The court stressed that copyright’s core features—ownership, duration, and moral rights—rest on human identity.[xix] This paradox means AI Barbie users may infringe Mattel’s rights yet hold none in their own outputs. Scholars argue that existing doctrines strain under machine creativity and urge hybrid standards for human–AI collaboration, a challenge now taken up by the World Intellectual Property Organization in its copyright consultations.[xx]

Other jurisdictions approach these tensions differently, offering alternative frameworks that highlight possible paths for reform. The United Kingdom’s (“U.K.”) Copyright, Designs and Patents Act assigns authorship of computer-generated works to the person who makes the “arrangements necessary” for their creation.[xxi] The European Union’s (“E.U.”) 2019 Copyright Directive, by contrast, keeps authorship tied to human creativity but imposes heightened platform duties.[xxii] The E.U.’s article 17 requires platforms to take “best efforts” to prevent infringing uploads, often through automated filters.[xxiii] This proactive model contrasts with the section 512 of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which relies on notice-and-takedown and shields platforms if they respond.[xxiv] The divergence reflects policy: the E.U. favors preventive enforcement, the U.S. favors innovation and expression. These contrasts show liability shifts by jurisdiction: in the U.K., authorship may go to the user, while in the E.U., platforms could bear responsibility for filtering.

Mattel’s ability to enforce its rights comes with important legal constraints. Copyright owners must consider fair use before issuing takedown notices under section 512(f).[xxv] If Mattel were to overreach by removing Barbie-inspired commentary that qualifies as parody, it could face liability for misrepresentation. Balancing protection with user rights is therefore essential. For Mattel, the challenge is strategic enforcement. The company has long policed its brand aggressively, from parody suits to cease-and-desist letters. Yet AI Barbie presents a qualitatively different issue. Millions joined the viral campaign, making mass litigation impractical and risky. A more sustainable approach for Mattel may include pursuing licensing agreements with AI tool developers, mirroring the music industry’s evolution from Napster to Spotify.[xxvi] Such agreements could monetize user creativity while allowing Mattel to preserve control over its brand.

AI Barbie has exposed doctrinal gaps, from derivative works that lack transformative purpose to trademarks eroded by overuse. Rather than distorting existing doctrines, courts and policymakers should craft clearer rules that both safeguard iconic brands and preserve space for transformative expression in the age of AI. AI Barbie shows that intellectual property law cannot remain in an analog frame. Like Barbie, the law must leave the dreamhouse and enter digital reality.

[i] See Maddison Hockey, Why Are AI-Generated Barbie Dolls Suddenly Everywhere?, Marie Claire (Apr. 11, 2025), https://www.marieclaire.com.au/life/ai-barbie-doll/ [https://perma.cc/K3L7-ZCZX].

[ii] See generally, M. G. Lord, Barbie, Encyc. Britannica (last updated Aug. 12, 2025), https://www.britannica.com/topic/Barbie [https://perma.cc/MS8R-8P34] (reporting that Mattel, Inc. launched Barbie’s debut on March 9, 1959).

[iii] See 17 U.S.C. § 106(2) (2021) (describing the copyright’s owner the exclusive right to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work).

[iv] See 7 U.S.C. § 107 (2021) (describing the statutory fair-use limitation).

[v] See Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, Inc., 296 F.3d 894, 902 (9th Cir. 2002) (holding that Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” song qualified as parody because it commented on Barbie’s cultural meaning); see also See Mattel, Inc. v. Walking Mountain Prods., 353 F.3d 792, 796–97 (9th Cir. 2003) (holding that satirical photographs of Barbie dolls were protected because they critiqued consumerist and gendered ideals as the artist’s aimed to “critique the objectification of women … and lambast the conventional beauty myth,” because “Barbie is the most enduring” product of a “beauty and perfection-obsessed consumer culture”).

[vi] See 7 U.S.C. § 107 (listing the four non-exhaustive factors in a fair use analysis).

[vii] 7 U.S.C. § 107(2).

[viii] But see Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207, 237–38 (1990) (explaining fair use is “more likely … in the case of factual works than … works of fiction” and treating the second factor as weighing against fair use where the underlying work was a creative, fictional story).

[ix] See 7 U.S.C. § 107(3) (“the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole”).

[x] Cf. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539, 565 (1985) (holding that verbatim use of about 300 words from an unpublished memoir was not fair use because it took the “heart of the work”).

[xi] See 7 U.S.C. § 107(4) (“the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work”).

[xii] See Jane C. Ginsburg, Fair Use Factor Four Revisited: Valuing the “Value” of the Copyrighted Work, 67 J. Copyright Soc’y U.S.A. 19, 24–25 (2020), https://copyrightsociety.org/journal-entries/fair-use-factor-four-revisited-valuing-the-value-of-copyrighted-work [https://perma.cc/E6N7-KVYU] (explaining that market effect traditionally means substitution in actual or potential markets, but courts are also beginning to treat “value” as broader, covering aspects like licensing opportunities, reputational harm, and business models).

[xiii] See Mattel Inc. v. Jcom Inc., No. 97 CIV. 7191 (SS), 1998 WL 766711, at 4 (S.D.N.Y. Sep. 11, 1998) (concluding that “the world-known BARBIE is a ‘famous’ trademark under the Federal Anti–Dilution Act”); see generally,  15 U.S.C. § 1125 (2012) (protecting against false designations of origin, false description or representation).

[xiv] See 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) (prohibiting unfair competition and false advertising); see also 15 U.S.C. § 1125(c) (prohibiting against the use of a mark that is likely to cause dilution of a “famous” mark).

[xv]  See 15 U.S.C. § 1125(c)(2)(C) (defining dilution by tarnishment as harm to a famous mark’s reputation through negative associations).

[xvi] See Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc., 537 U.S. 418, 433–34 (2003) (“The term ‘dilution’ means the lessening of the capacity of a famous mark to identify and distinguish goods or services, regardless of the presence or absence of (1) competition … or (2) likelihood of confusion, mistake, or deception.”).

[xvii] Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing AI-Generated Material, 88 Fed. Reg. 16,190 (Mar. 16, 2023), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-ai-generated-material.

[xviii] See Thaler v. Perlmutter, 85 F.4th 136, 137–38 (D.C. Cir. 2025) (holding that a computer system could not register copyright work it generated).

[xix] See id. at 143–44.

[xx] See Robin Feldman, Artificial Intelligence and Cracks in the Foundation of Intellectual Property, 76 Uc L. Sf L.J. 4,7 58 (2024) (arguing that AI augments human capacity and encourages “ movie buffs . . . [to] think [about] Iron Man, in which a weaponized suit enhances the protagonist’s capacities, as opposed to the Terminator, in which a machine-like cyborg does everything by itself.’”); see also World Intellectual Prop. Org., WIPO Conversation on Intellectual Property (IP) and Frontier Technologies—Ninth Session (Mar. 13–14, 2024).

[xxi] Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, c. 48, § 9(3) (U.K.).

[xxii] Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on Copyright and Related Rights in the Digital Single Market and Amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC, 2019 O.J. (L 130) 92.

[xxiii] Id.

[xxiv] See Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Pub. L. No. 105–304, 112 Stat. 2860 (1998) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 17 U.S.C.).

[xxv] See Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 815 F.3d 1145, 1154 (9th Cir. 2016) (explaining that § 512(f) liability may attach if a copyright owner issues a takedown without a good-faith belief that the use is not fair).

[xxvi] See Adam Epstein, How the Music Industry Shifted from Napster to Spotify, Quartz (Aug. 29, 2019), https://qz.com/1683609/how-the-music-industry-shifted-from-napster-to-spotify (“In 2007…Spotify would convince music labels in Sweden to license music to the site, and unlicensed music was removed. From there, Spotify would take off across Europe and then the world.”).