Coca-Cola rejects allegations that it unlawfully imitated Johnny Cash's voice in an advertisement
Coca-Cola has contested, in federal court in Nashville, a lawsuit filed by the trust that manages Johnny Cash's rights, arguing that an advertisement from a campaign for American college football did not violate the singer's voice or his personality rights. According to a court filing submitted on May 8, 2026, the company acknowledges that a male singing voice is heard in the advertisement, but rejects the claim that it was an unauthorized "sound-alike" performer hired to lead the audience to think it was listening to Cash. The dispute is being heard before the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, in the case John R. Cash Revocable Trust v. The Coca-Cola Company.
The case has attracted attention because it does not concern only one advertisement, but also the broader question of how far the commercial use of the voice, style and recognizability of a deceased artist may go. In the lawsuit filed on November 25, 2025, the John R. Cash Revocable Trust claims that Coca-Cola, without permission and without compensation, used a voice that is "readily identifiable" as Johnny Cash's voice in a national advertising campaign. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, states in its answer to the complaint that the disputed advertisement is not an "infringing ad", meaning that it is not an advertisement that violates rights, and seeks dismissal of all claims with prejudice.
What Coca-Cola admits and what it firmly denies
According to Coca-Cola's answer to the complaint, the company admits that it hired an advertising agency to create an advertisement for the 2025 autumn football marketing campaign. In the same filing, Coca-Cola states that the advertisement contained an original musical composition and that a vocal artist was hired to sing the vocal part for the song used in the advertisement. However, the company denies the trust's claims that this performer was a "sound-alike" singer, that is, a person hired to imitate Cash's voice.
In the filing, Coca-Cola also admits that the advertisement showed fans drinking Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, as well as that visual elements connected with several universities appeared in the advertisement. Among them are the University of Michigan, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Southern California, Louisiana State University and The Ohio State University, with which the company admits it has or has had commercial relationships. It also admits that the advertisement aired on television, on parts of social networks and on internet platforms, including ABC, NBC, FOX, FS1, BTN, TNT, ESPN, ESPN2, TBS and TRUTV.
The most important part of the defense concerns the very nature of the voice in the advertisement. According to the court answer, Coca-Cola admits that the singing voice in the advertisement is not Johnny Cash's actual voice, but denies the claim that the voice was an unauthorized imitation that could be attributed to the singer. The company also denies that consumers were led to the wrong conclusion that the advertisement contained Cash's actual voice or the approval of his estate. In doing so, Coca-Cola is trying to separate the fact that a singer with a deeper male voice was used in the advertisement from the legal claim that Cash's personality was thereby commercially exploited.
In its request for a court ruling, Coca-Cola asks that judgment be entered in its favor, that all of the trust's claims be dismissed with prejudice and that, to the extent permitted by law, it be awarded attorneys' fees and court costs. The company has also requested a jury trial for all issues that may be decided by a jury under the rules of procedure. According to the filing, the defenses also include claims that the trust lacks standing for part of the claims, that certain allegations are protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and that certain state-law claims, in Coca-Cola's view, are partially or entirely precluded by federal law.
The trust claims that the advertisement exploited Cash's recognizability
The trust that manages Johnny Cash's rights claims in the lawsuit that Coca-Cola launched, around August 20, 2025, a national campaign for the NCAA college football season titled "Fan Work Is Thirsty Work". According to the lawsuit, the campaign included the television advertisement "Go the Distance", in which scenes of fans, sports rituals and beverages were synchronized with an audio recording of a male singing voice. The trust claims that this voice sounded "strikingly similar" to Cash's voice and that it was recognizable enough to be attributed to the famous musician.
The lawsuit states that the disputed voice was not Johnny Cash's actual voice, but the voice of a tribute performer who, according to the trust's claims, was hired by the advertising agency on behalf of Coca-Cola. The trust claims that the performer presents himself on his own promotional channels as "The No. 1 Johnny Cash Tribute Show" and "The Man in Black — A Tribute to Johnny Cash". From this it draws the conclusion that the purpose of the engagement was to produce a vocal part that would sound as similar as possible to Cash's voice and transfer the commercial value of his recognizability to Coca-Cola's campaign.
According to the lawsuit, the advertisement aired during the college football season on major American television networks and sports channels and on social and digital platforms. The trust claims that some consumers on social networks reacted as if they believed they were hearing Cash's actual voice, which, according to its interpretation, shows the possibility of confusion. Coca-Cola denies such a characterization in its answer to the complaint and states that it lacks sufficient knowledge or information to confirm claims about what consumers actually thought or concluded.
The lawsuit is not based solely on the claim of voice similarity. The trust states that Coca-Cola has a long history of entering into marketing and promotional agreements with musicians, athletes and other public figures, and therefore claims that the company must have known that permission from the rights holder is required for the commercial use of a recognizable voice. Coca-Cola admits that it has previously entered into agreements with performers and musicians and that it has partnerships connected with music and entertainment, but denies that these facts prove liability in this case.
Why the ELVIS Act is at the center of the dispute
The legal framework that makes the case particularly important is the Tennessee law known as the ELVIS Act, whose full title is the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act. According to an official announcement by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, the law was designed to modernize the state's protection of personality rights and include voice in protection against misuse, especially in the context of artificial intelligence and the possibility of creating convincing imitations. Associated Press reported that Tennessee thereby became the first U.S. state to adopt such a form of protection aimed at musicians and other artists.
The ELVIS Act took effect on July 1, 2024, and expanded the existing protection of name, photograph and likeness to voice. According to court documents, the law defines voice as sound in any medium that can be readily identified and attributed to a particular person, regardless of whether it contains the actual voice or a simulation of it. Precisely that wording is important for the dispute between Cash's trust and Coca-Cola, because the trust does not claim that an original Cash recording was used in the advertisement, but that a simulation or imitation of the voice that the public associates with him was exploited.
According to the lawsuit, the ELVIS Act allows a civil action when an individual's voice or likeness is used without approval to advertise products, goods or services. In the case of a deceased person, according to the allegations in the court documents, consent must be sought from the person or entity that manages the relevant rights, such as heirs, executors of the estate or holders of transferred rights. The trust claims that it owns and manages the relevant rights to Cash's voice and that Coca-Cola did not request a license.
In its answer, Coca-Cola does not dispute that Tennessee enacted the ELVIS Act or that the law took effect on July 1, 2024, but argues that the text of the law must be read in its entirety and rejects the trust's interpretation. The company denies that the advertisement violated the law, denies that Cash's protected vocal persona was used and sets out several legal defenses that, in its view, should lead to dismissal of the claims. If the proceedings continue, the court will have to consider how voice protection applies to advertising, tribute performances and recordings that were not generated by artificial intelligence but allegedly resemble the voice of a famous person.
The boundary between tribute performance, imitation and commercial use
The case raises a question that has appeared for years in the music and advertising industries: when does a stylized performance or tribute approach cross the line of what is permitted and become unauthorized commercial exploitation of identity? Tribute performers generally perform before an audience that knows it is not watching the original artist, but an interpretation of his body of work, style and public persona. In advertising, the situation is more sensitive because a voice, image or recognizable association can be connected with the sale of products and create the impression of endorsement, sponsorship or affiliation.
The trust claims that this is exactly the problem in Coca-Cola's advertisement. According to its argument, the audience was not watching a tribute performer's concert and was not clearly warned that it was a homage, but in a commercial advertisement heard a vocal that, according to the lawsuit, sounded like Cash. Coca-Cola responds that the trust exaggerates the legal significance of the similarity and that the mere hiring of a singer for an original composition does not mean infringement of voice rights. In the filing, the company expressly denies that there was an "Infringing Ad" and denies that the singer was hired as a "sound-alike" in the sense alleged by the trust.
The case is given particular weight by the fact that the dispute does not deal exclusively with artificial intelligence. The ELVIS Act was presented to the public as a response to the dangers of voice cloning and synthetic media, but Cash's trust claims that the protection also applies to unauthorized use of a voice or its simulation in a broader sense. If the court accepts such an interpretation, the case could also be important for traditional advertisements in which singers, narrators or actors whose voices resemble a famous person are hired, even when no AI tool was used.
At the same time, Coca-Cola's defense shows that companies are likely to warn of the risk of an overly broad interpretation of such laws. If every vocal similarity to a famous performer were sufficient for a lawsuit, advertisers, producers and musicians could face uncertainty when using genre features, deep vocals, country stylization or homage elements. The court proceedings could therefore clarify whether a plaintiff must prove recognizability to the level of consumer confusion, intent to imitate, commercial benefit or a combination of those elements.
The trust's demands and the possible effect on the industry
In the lawsuit, the trust seeks damages, disgorgement of profits that it claims are connected with the unauthorized exploitation of Cash's voice, punitive damages and a court injunction prohibiting further use of the disputed advertisement. According to the lawsuit, the damages and profits attributed to the alleged rights violation exceed 75,000 U.S. dollars, which is a threshold often cited in U.S. federal litigation for jurisdictional purposes. Coca-Cola disputes all key allegations of liability and asks the court to dismiss the claims.
The outcome of the case could have consequences beyond the dispute itself between one estate and one global company. If the court allows the claims to proceed under the trust's interpretation, holders of rights to the voices of famous musicians could gain a stronger argument against advertisements that use vocal imitations or tribute performers without a license. If Coca-Cola succeeds in its defense, advertisers could gain broader room to use original recordings and performers whose style draws on musical tradition, provided that they do not use actual recordings or explicitly suggest the endorsement of a famous person.
For the music industry, the case comes at a time when the protection of voice as part of identity is being discussed ever more intensely. According to Associated Press, when adopting the law Tennessee emphasized that artists are facing technologies that can replicate voice without consent, and Governor Lee stressed that artists have a uniqueness that belongs only to them. Although the Cash and Coca-Cola case does not necessarily have to be reduced to AI, it tests the same fundamental principle: can vocal recognizability be protected even when the original recording is not used, but rather a performance that allegedly creates the same impression.
At present it is not clear how the court will assess the arguments of the two sides. The court record shows that Coca-Cola formally answered the complaint and presented defenses, but that does not mean that the court accepted its claims or ruled on the merits of the dispute. At this stage of the proceedings, the key distinction is between the parties' allegations and established facts: the trust claims that there was unauthorized exploitation of Cash's voice, while Coca-Cola claims that the advertisement violated neither the ELVIS Act nor the other rights on which the trust relies.
Johnny Cash as a protected cultural and commercial value
Johnny Cash, known as the "Man in Black", is one of the most recognizable figures in 20th-century American music. His deep baritone, minimalist rhythm and combination of country, rockabilly, gospel and folk storytelling created a sonic identity that, even after his death, is often used as a cultural reference. Precisely because of that recognizability, his name, likeness and voice have both artistic and commercial value, which is at the center of his trust's argument.
In the lawsuit, the trust claims that Cash's voice cannot be treated as a general musical style available to everyone, but as part of a personality that can be licensed and protected from unauthorized use. Coca-Cola, according to its answer to the complaint, rejects such an application to the disputed advertisement and emphasizes that an original composition with the voice of a vocal performer was used, not Cash's actual voice. Such a conflict shows how difficult the boundary between inspiration, homage and legally relevant imitation can be to draw when it comes to voices that are deeply embedded in popular culture.
The case will therefore be followed as one of the early tests of Tennessee's new law and its reach in commercial advertising. Regardless of the final outcome, the dispute already shows that brands, agencies and rights holders will have to assess more carefully the sonic associations they use in campaigns. In an era in which a voice can be recorded, imitated, stylized or computer-generated ever more convincingly, the question of consent becomes as important as the question of the technical manner in which the recording was created.
Sources:
- Music Business Worldwide – report on Coca-Cola's answer to the complaint and summary of key court allegations (link)
- United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee / Coca-Cola filing – answer to the complaint in the case John R. Cash Revocable Trust v. The Coca-Cola Company (link)
- United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee / complaint by the John R. Cash Revocable Trust – allegations about the campaign, advertisement and application of the ELVIS Act (link)
- Office of the Governor of Tennessee – official announcements about the ELVIS Act and the protection of artists' voices (link)
- Associated Press – report on the ELVIS Act taking effect and its significance for protecting musicians from unauthorized voice replication (link)