The estate of Johnny Cash is suing Coca-Cola, accusing the company of hiring a tribute singer to imitate the country singer’s voice illegally for a college football ad, as Billboard reports .

The federal complaint filed Tuesday in Nashville is the first major case to come under Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act (ELVIS) Act. Enacted in 2024, the ELVIS Act expanded the state’s statutory right of publicity to protect a person’s voice from being exploited.

The manager of Cash’s estate, the John R. Cash Revocable Trust, cited a song in a commercial, which has been airing since August during college football games. In the lawsuit, the estate claims that the voice in the ad sounds “remarkably” like Cash’s, and that it is the voice of a performer named Shawn

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