Johnny Cash Estate Sues Coca-Cola Over New Ad

Listening to the ad itself, the first portion of it most certainly sounds like Johnny Cash singing, and a Johnny Cash song in style of The Tennessee Three. The second half actually sounds more similar to performer Paul Cauthen, who rather famously tries to sound a lot like Johnny Cash. The song featured in the ad itself is not a specific track from any particular artist that can be publicly identified. In the lawsuit, the estate claims Coca-Cola hired a Johnny Cash tribute singer to perform the track, though no such singer is named. In truth, this very well might be the case of AI being prompted to make a 15-second track in the style of Johnny Cash, and inserting it into a commercial, stimulating further alarm about the impending AI paradigm.But is the 15 second snippet really similar enough where likeness rights were infringed? Could this stimulate further lawsuits as AI borrows from the legacies of legendary artists to evoke nostalgia in advertising? I guess we’ll find out as John R. Cash Revocable Trust v. Coca-Cola Co. moves forward.

I’d never seen this ad before now; but I saw another ad for another company (can’t remember which) last night that sounded a lot more like Johnny Cash than this one. Probably done by the same impersonator.

The thing is, as litigious as this might all feel, if you don’t sue over over the potential infringement of intellectual property, you can set a precedent where someone can say, “Hey. Coca-Cola did a similar thing, and they didn’t do anything,” and you can lose both cases, and then everyone’s making Johnny Cash commercials. You’re pretty much compelled to nip it in the bud.

Hopefully, someone else heard the commercial I’m referencing. When it started I looked up immediately thinking this was the commercial in controversy, but it was not this commercial and not for Coca-Cola. Had some ryes in me by that point and can’t remember the company it was for; but it sounded exactly like Johnny Cash though it was not a song I remember from his catalog.

Maybe that impersonator is new to the advertising scene and is trying to cash in (so to speak) now that AI has already muddied the water? Or maybe, the impersonator is AI. Who the hell knows anymore.

There’s also just so much AI slop out there, especially on social media. You saw this on actual TV TV or was it a video that popped up advertising something while browsing social media?

This seems like a crazy thing to litigate..
Especially since Coke’s entire business is based on trademark, and it has teams of lawyers that scour the world fighting and tamping down infringements on Coke’s trademarks.

The parties should–and I’m guessing they will–meet in a conference room and settle and resolve this thing, before expending time and money on court conferences, discovery and depositions. Maybe even before Coke has to file an Answer.

I was looking for a comment about this. Tom took Frito-Lay to the cleaners over their deceitful misappropriation of his voice. Corporations seem to have short memories and lax oversight these days…

I respectfully disagree. The first part to me sounds exactly like vintage Johnny Cash, and not just from the voice, but the music. The second half is more Paul Cauthen, but since Cauthen is basically a ripoff of the Johnny Cash id, that counts too. But I guess we can all hear things differently.

Wasn’t there a case like this in the 1980’s where a -very- close to Bette Midler soundalike did the vocal (hey, at least a live vocal!) on a commercial – Midler’s people sued and won an injunction if I remember correctly.

Bette Midler recorded a song, “Do You Want To Dance,” that was written by Bobby Freeman. An ad agency got the rights to the song from Freeman and then asked Midler to sing it on a commercial for Ford Mercury Sable. She declined, saying she did not do commercials. The agency then hired one of Midler’s former backup singers to sing the song in a voice as close to Midler’s as she could get. The federal court in California held that “when a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs and have committed a tort in California.” The case went to trial, a jury awarded Midler $400,000, and it was upheld on appeal.

A whole lot of nothing. Could be a million singers. JC estate doesn’t own trademark for a generic deep bassy country sounding singing as far as I know and that’s all this is

I can understand protecting one’s rights but doesn’t the estate benefit from the publicity it will generate for Johnny Cash? Will it not help his legend grow as people who will not have heard of him will do so?

I’ve been listening to Johnny Cash records ever since I was a kid and I’m just not getting a Johnny Cash vibe from this one. The vocal is pretty poor IMO.

For the record Johnny did record radio & TV commercials for Pepsi Cola circa 1970. Some of the TV spots aired on his ABC-TV show at that time. The well produced spots that included his band The Tennessee Three. Bob Wooten’s distinctive lead guitar is clearly evident. Multiple versions/mix outs were made leaving “holes” for the announcer talk-overs.

I don’t know. Seems tenuous. If we need to say the first half and second half of a :15 snippet sound dissimilar, then there’s not enough here for me to think a suit is warranted. Seems the estate is looking for a settlement (payment) they probably aren’t entitled to. Lots of folks sound like Johnny Cash. If the estate wins, they just might next argue they’re entitled to half of Paul Cauthen’s career earnings as well as that of all the other copycats. And Zach Bryan is owed half of Sam Barber’s and almost every other new artists’ earnings. Where does it stop?

I guess I’m in the minority here. But if I was called to the stand and sworn in with my hand on the Bible as a country music expert, heard the commercial for the first time, and asked if it sounds like an established country music artist with an intent to deceive the public, I would immediately state “Yes, Johnny Cash. The second part sounds like an independent country artist who’s not widely known in society named Paul Cauthen. But Paul Cuathen draws in influence largely from Johnny Cash.”

The thing is, you can’t sue a Johnny Cash impersonator. There is a lot of case law protecting impersonators, parody, cover songs, etc. Commercials are different. There is case law protecting creators in this case, like the Tom Waits and Bette Mildler cases cited by others, because it implies endorsement by the estate or artist since you must receive permission to use music in a broadcast commercial context.

What makes this nuts is that Cash and Coca-Cola are quintessential Americana icons. They should be allied titans, not adversaries in a courtroom. In fact, they have been:

Unless it’s AI reproducing Johnny’s voice – they’ve got nothing. If it was an actual singer who sang it – and it’s not Johnny Estate copyrighted material – fuck off with that frivolous bullshit. You can’t tell people not to sing in voices they actually have in them. Anything to fuck someone out of a buck.

You may be mistaken that they’ve “got nothing.” The law in many states recognizes a claim for voice misappropriation, which is typically protected under a state’s right of publicity laws. Tennessee law, where the Cash suit was filed, recognizes a cause of action for the misappropriation of an individual’s voice under its right of publicity law, the Tennessee Personal Rights Protection Act, as recently amended by the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security (ELVIS) Act.

The laws don’t mean you can’t do an imitation, but they do prohibit using an imitator to make it sound like a recognized singer is endorsing a product. I outlined above what happened when an ad agency hired a Bette Midler imitator for a Ford commercial. The court held that “when a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs and have committed a tort in California.” Bette won $400,000. Later, an ad agency hired a Tom Waits impersonator to sing a jingle for a Doritos commercial in Waits’ distinctive gravelly voice. Waits won $2.5 million. The appellate court decisions are easy to find online and are interesting reading.

So the law gives the Cash Trust a legal basis for a claim. The question will be whether the voice in the Coke commercial sounds so much like Cash that it runs afoul of this law. Stay tuned.

What a lot of people are discounting here is the medium. If you’re going to use a song in a commercial, the case law and the scrutiny that exists in these instances is very strong at protecting creators. This case might not win. But it’s definitely not frivolous, or unprecedented.

The voice is Cash-like, but Coke would probably be in the clear if it were only that. The real issue is the voice they present together with a few bars of “boom-chicka-boom” Tennessee Three sound. Put those two things together and it’s a Cash likeness. But then again, I’m not an attorney (thankfully).

Exactly. Even if you think the voice is similar, but not an exact match, the music is. You put those things together, and it’s pretty obvious what they’re going for.

FWIW, I didn’t get the Cash vibe from this short bit. But, saw the commercial on TV today; actually heard it from the other room, and it definitely sounds like Johnny. Clearly obvious (at least the first part) was trying to sound like him

To me its kind of silly. If it was a newer act that was very popular like taylor swift i could see it. Her demographic tends to feature a lot younger people that might be influenced. I dont think the general fans of johnny cash are going to be influenced to drink a coke even if it was actually him doing it. I get it, past law practices does favor coke here but i still think its frivolous. Also there isnt anything legal that says just because coke didnt pursue this case, they cant pursue far more egregious cases in the future.

Coca Cola knows better. We did an animated spot for an Elvis Presley lottery ticket and had to clear everything with the EP estate. Even the impersonator we used was a sanctioned impersonator.