Tennessee's ELVIS Act: Voice, Likeness and Liability for Imitation Tools

The Personal Rights Protection Act Before 2024

Tennessee's statutory publicity right predates the ELVIS Act by forty years. In State ex rel. Elvis Presley International Memorial Foundation v. Crowell, 733 S.W.2d 89 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1987), the Court of Appeals described the General Assembly's 1984 enactment of Tenn. Code Ann. 47-25-1101 et seq., "known as 'The Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984.'" The court summarized its structure: section 47-25-1103(a) recognized "a property right in the use of his name, photograph or likeness in any medium in any manner," subsection (b) made the right descendible, and section 47-25-1104 made the right exclusive to the individual or heirs and assigns until terminated, with termination following non-use after death.

Crowell itself did not rest on the statute. The dispute was between two nonprofits over the use of Elvis Presley's name in their corporate names, and the court held that Presley's right of publicity survived his death as a matter of Tennessee common law. It added that nothing in the 1984 Act "should be construed to limit vested rights of publicity that were in existence prior to the effective date of the act," because retroactive impairment of contract rights would conflict with Article I, Section 20 of the Tennessee Constitution. The common-law right and the statutory right therefore sit side by side in Tennessee.

The bill summary posted on the General Assembly's HB 2091 record describes the pre-2024 statute in more detail. It states that present law made the property right exclusive during the individual's lifetime and for ten years after death, and terminated the exclusive right on proof of two years of commercial non-use following that ten-year period. It describes the old liability provision as reaching a person who "knowingly uses or infringes upon the use of another individual's name, photograph, or likeness in any medium, in any manner directed to any person other than such individual, as an item of commerce" for advertising or fundraising purposes, without consent. Voice was not among the protected attributes.

What the ELVIS Act Added for Voice

HB 2091 by Representative Lamberth, with SB 2096 by Senator Johnson as its companion, was filed in January 2024. The bill history records House passage as amended on March 5, 2024 by 93 to 0 and Senate passage on March 7 by 30 to 0, and assignment as Public Chapter 588. Section 13 of the chapter set the effective date at July 1, 2024.

The chapter is short. Section 1 renames the statute the "Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act of 2024." Section 3 adds a definition that does the central work:

"Voice" means a sound in a medium that is readily identifiable and attributable to a particular individual, regardless of whether the sound contains the actual voice or a simulation of the voice of the individual.

The closing clause is what extends the right to synthesized and imitated voices. The test is whether the sound is readily identifiable and attributable to a particular person, not whether that person recorded it. Section 4 then rewrites section 47-25-1103(a) so that every individual has a property right in the use of their "name, photograph, voice, or likeness in any medium in any manner." Sections 7 and 9 add voice wherever sections 47-25-1106 and 47-25-1107 previously listed "photograph, or likeness." Section 2 inserts "individual," before "firm," in subdivision 47-25-1102(4).

Section 5 changes the post-mortem rule. The exclusive right after death still ends on proof of two years of commercial non-use following the initial ten years, now measured against "name, photograph, voice, or likeness." A new subdivision (b)(2)(B) adds that "use" includes "the commercial availability of a sound recording or audiovisual work in which the individual's name, photograph, voice, or likeness is readily identifiable." On that text, an estate whose recordings remain on sale is using the voice those recordings contain.

Three Grounds for a Civil Action

Section 6 of the chapter replaces subsection 47-25-1105(a) with three numbered paragraphs, each ending in the phrase "is liable to a civil action."

• (a)(1), advertising and fundraising use. A person who knowingly uses or infringes upon the use of an individual's name, photograph, voice or likeness, in any medium and in any manner directed to someone other than that individual, for advertising products, merchandise, goods or services, or for fundraising, solicitation of donations or purchases, without the required consent. Consent comes from the individual, a minor's parent or legal guardian, or for a deceased individual the executor or administrator, heirs or devisees. Compared with the bill summary's account of prior law, the enacted paragraph does not contain the words "as an item of commerce."
• (a)(2), public distribution. A person who "publishes, performs, distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to the public an individual's voice or likeness, with knowledge that use of the voice or likeness was not authorized" by the same set of people. This paragraph has no advertising or fundraising element in its text.
• (a)(3), tools. A person who makes available a technology whose primary purpose or function is producing a particular, identifiable individual's photograph, voice or likeness, discussed in the next section.

The knowledge requirement differs across the three. Paragraph (a)(1) turns on knowing use. Paragraphs (a)(2) and (a)(3) turn on knowledge that the use, or the distribution, was not authorized.

Liability for Tools Whose Primary Purpose Is Imitation

Paragraph (a)(3) is the provision without an obvious counterpart in the 1984 Act. Its full text reads that a person is liable to a civil action if the person "distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available an algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service, or device, the primary purpose or function of such algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service, or device is the production of a particular, identifiable individual's photograph, voice, or likeness, with knowledge that distributing, transmitting, or otherwise making available the photograph, voice, or likeness was not authorized" by the individual or the person entitled to consent on their behalf.

Three limits are written into that sentence. The technology's primary purpose or function has to be production of the protected attribute, so the text distinguishes a general-purpose system from one built around imitation. The output has to be a particular, identifiable individual's photograph, voice or likeness rather than a generic or composite one. And the distributor has to know that making the photograph, voice or likeness available was unauthorized.

The words "particular, identifiable" and the knowledge clause arrived during the House process. According to the bill summary, the version described before amendment imposed liability on a person who made available a technology whose primary purpose was "the production of an individual's photograph, voice, or likeness without authorization." House Amendment 1 (HA0578), adopted March 4, 2024, substituted the narrower wording that became law.

Exemptions for News, Commentary and Parody

Section 10 replaces subsection 47-25-1107(a), the fair use provision. The new text opens with a condition: "To the extent such use is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is deemed a fair use and not a violation of an individual's right" if the use of a name, photograph, voice or likeness is:

1. In connection with any news, public affairs, or sports broadcast or account
2. For purposes of comment, criticism, scholarship, satire, or parody
3. A representation of the individual as the individual's self in an audiovisual work, as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101, unless the work containing the use is intended to create, and does create, the false impression that the work is an authentic recording in which the individual participated
4. Fleeting or incidental
5. In an advertisement or commercial announcement for a work described in the subsection

The bill summary indicates that the prior fair use provision named only news, public affairs and sports broadcasts or accounts. The 2024 list adds commentary, criticism, scholarship, satire and parody, documentary-style portrayals and incidental uses, but ties each to First Amendment protection rather than granting it outright. Item 3 carries its own exception: a portrayal of a person as themselves falls outside the safe harbor where the work is meant to pass, and does pass, as an authentic recording of that person.

Section 11 changes a separate rule in subsection 47-25-1107(c). The bill summary describes that subsection as shielding owners and employees of an advertising medium that published an unlawful advertisement unless they had knowledge of the unauthorized use. Public Chapter 588 substitutes "had knowledge or reasonably should have known of the unauthorized use," which moves the standard from actual knowledge toward constructive knowledge.

Remedies and Who May Sue

Section 8 adds subsection 47-25-1106(f): where a person "has entered into a contract for an individual's exclusive personal services as a recording artist or an exclusive license to distribute sound recordings that capture an individual's audio performances," an action to enforce the part "may be brought by the person or the individual." On its face that gives a record label or exclusive distributor standing alongside the artist.

The rest of section 47-25-1106 was amended only to add voice to subsection (a). The bill summary describes subsection (a) as authorizing the chancery and circuit courts to grant injunctions to prevent or restrain unauthorized use. The codified text of section 47-25-1106 is hosted on a commercial site that could not be retrieved for this post, so its other remedy provisions are reported here only as a pleading quotes them. The complaint in the Cash case discussed below quotes section 47-25-1106(d)(1) as entitling an individual to "recover the actual damages suffered as a result of the knowing use or infringement of such individual's rights and any profits that are attributable to such use or infringement which are not taken into account in computing the actual damages."

Section 12 of the chapter updates the Act's name in section 39-14-152(9) of the criminal code title. That section was not retrieved, so this post does not describe what it provides.

Litigation Under the ELVIS Act So Far

Searches of federal court opinions published on govinfo.gov returned no decision construing the voice definition, paragraph (a)(2) or the tool provision in paragraph (a)(3). The filings located are complaints and answers in cases that have not reached a ruling on those provisions.

John R. Cash Revocable Trust v. The Coca-Cola Company, No. 3:25-cv-01373 (M.D. Tenn.), filed November 25, 2025, is the voice case. The complaint alleges that a 2025 college football commercial titled "Go the Distance" used a vocal track sung by a Johnny Cash tribute performer, that the singing voice is "readily identifiable and attributable to Johnny Cash" but is "not the actual Voice of Johnny Cash," and that the trust, which alleges it owns Cash's voice rights, was never asked for a license. Count I pleads a violation of the ELVIS Act, alleging that Coca-Cola knowingly used the voice to advertise its products without the trust's authorization; the complaint also pleads Tennessee Consumer Protection Act and Lanham Act false endorsement counts and seeks injunctions, damages, profits and punitive damages.

Coca-Cola's answer, filed May 8, 2026, admits that a vocal artist was hired to sing an original composition for the advertisement and that the ad ran on the networks listed, denies that it is infringing, and denies the allegations embedded in the complaint's term "Sound-Alike Singer." Its listed defenses include lack of standing, the First Amendment, laches, estoppel and federal preemption. The case is assigned to Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr.

The statute has also been pleaded in image cases. In Geiger v. Pure Passion, Inc. Sports Bar, No. 2:25-cv-02468 (W.D. Tenn.), filed April 29, 2025, a group of professional models alleges that a Memphis club altered and posted their photographs to advertise the club. The complaint titles its third cause of action a violation of the "Tennessee Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984, T.C.A. 47-25-1101 to 47-25-1108 'TRPA' or 'ELVIS Act'" and tracks the paragraph (a)(2) language by alleging the defendants "published, performed, distributed, transmitted or otherwise made available to the public" each plaintiff's image with knowledge that the use was unauthorized.

The codified sections of Tenn. Code Ann. 47-25-1101 et seq. were not read for this post. The statutory language quoted above comes from Public Chapter 588 as enacted and signed, and descriptions of prior law come from the General Assembly's bill summary and from Crowell.

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