Your Voice Is Your Brand — Until Someone Else Decides to Keep It
If your voice built a brand for forty years and the brand kept recording your voice on its reservation line after it stopped paying you, you are not in a “personality dispute” — you are in a federal Lanham Act false-endorsement case, a New York Civil Rights Law right-of-publicity case, and a breach-of-contract case, sitting on top of one another. That is the legal shape of the Tom Bodett v. Motel 6 settlement that closed in Manhattan federal court in December 2025. It is also the legal shape of dozens of cases we see every year from voice actors, brand ambassadors, musicians, athletes, social-media creators, and even small-business owners whose names and faces end up on a hotel, a chain restaurant, or a franchise’s marketing materials long after the check has stopped clearing.
We are writing this page for the person on the other end of that phone line: the voice who hears themselves in an ad they did not approve, the musician whose song keeps playing in a lobby they no longer work with, the chef whose name is on a menu they no longer own, the photographer whose work is on a wall they cannot enter, the actor whose face is on a billboard they did not sign off on. The law is not silent about that. We will show you what it says, what it costs to enforce, and what the hotel’s playbook looks like the moment the relationship breaks.
“An individual who is a victim of a violation of this chapter may bring a civil action against the perpetrator (or whoever knowingly benefits, or attempts or conspires to benefit, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has engaged in an act in violation of this chapter)… and may recover damages and reasonable attorneys fees.”
— 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a) (TVPRA beneficiary civil remedy, the template the Bodett team had to know was on the shelf even though Bodett’s case ran on contract, Lanham Act, and New York right-of-publicity theories, not TVPRA).
The quote above is the TVPRA — Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act — not the Bodett statute. We open with it because it captures the architecture every “voice-stolen” case shares: a single federal civil-remedy statute that reaches not just the perpetrator but whoever knowingly benefits from the exploitation of a person’s identity. The Bodett team had analogous federal and state remedies in their kit. We will walk through each of them as they actually applied to the Motel 6 dispute, and we will show what value the settlement likely carried, what evidence almost disappeared, and what defenses the brand ran in its July 2025 court filing.
Why This Settlement Matters to Anyone Whose Voice, Name, or Likeness Is a Brand Asset
Bodett’s case sits at the intersection of three legal systems that almost every endorsement or brand-identity dispute touches. We want our readers to see how they fit together, because most people find out they have a case only when the relationship is already broken and the brand is already using their identity in a way they did not approve.
Three legal regimes are running in parallel
1. Breach of written contract. An endorsement agreement is a contract. The hotel’s failure to make a scheduled payment, and its continued use of the voice after the relationship is severed, is a textbook breach. The damages are the unpaid contract amount, the value of the unauthorized use, and (in many states) consequential damages for the harm the unauthorized use did to the brand owner’s reputation and future endorsement value.
2. Federal trademark law — the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a). This is the “false endorsement” provision. It makes it unlawful to use a name, voice, likeness, or other identifying feature in commercial advertising in a way that is likely to cause confusion as to the person’s affiliation, connection, or association with another person. The Motel 6 reservation line plays Bodett’s voice. Callers reasonably believe the man who wrote the tagline is still affiliated with the chain. That is exactly the affiliation the Lanham Act was written to police. A Lanham Act plaintiff can recover the defendant’s profits, the plaintiff’s damages, and the costs of the action — and in exceptional cases, the plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees.
3. State right of publicity — New York Civil Rights Law §§ 50 and 51. Section 50 is the consent rule (no use of a person’s name, voice, signature, likeness, or portrait within New York for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade without the person’s prior written consent). Section 51 is the private cause of action. New York is one of the strictest consent states in the country: there is no newsworthiness or “public interest” escape hatch in the consent rule itself. If a chain uses your voice on a New York reservation line, the consent rule is doing exactly what it was written to do.
The Bodett team did not have to pick one of these. They stacked them. That is the right move in any voice-stolen case, and we will tell you why in the damages section below.
The Trademark Claim: Lanham Act § 43(a), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)
The Lanham Act’s false-endorsement provision has become the most powerful federal tool for a voice actor or brand ambassador whose identity is being used without permission. We will show you how the elements map to the Motel 6 facts.
The elements the plaintiff must prove: (1) the plaintiff owns a mark or distinctive identity; (2) the defendant used that identity in commercial advertising; (3) the use is likely to cause confusion as to the plaintiff’s affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement. The plaintiff does not have to prove a formal federal trademark registration. Distinctive identity in the form of a recognizable voice, combined with widespread consumer association of that voice with the brand, satisfies the first element.
Why Bodett’s voice satisfies element 1. A single voice tied to a single tagline for nearly forty years is, as a matter of consumer recognition, a mark. The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Waits v. Frito-Lay, Inc., 978 F.2d 1093 (9th Cir. 1992) (later abrogated on other grounds but still cited for the voice-as-trademark principle) recognized that a performer’s distinctive voice can be a protectable identity. Bodett’s case is stronger than Waits: a generation of American travelers hears the Motel 6 voice and thinks of Bodett specifically. That is the rare kind of consumer association Lanham Act § 43(a) was written to police.
Why the reservation line satisfies element 2. Commercial advertising under § 1125(a) includes the full range of marketing communications a brand uses to drive sales. A national reservation phone line is not background music; it is a direct sales channel. Playing a recognizable voice on that line is “use in commerce” in the most literal sense.
Why element 3 is the most important one for any voice-stolen case. Likelihood of confusion is the gravamen of the case. The plaintiff does not have to prove that any single caller bought a room because of the voice. The plaintiff has to prove that a significant number of reasonable consumers would believe the speaker is still affiliated with the brand. In Bodett’s case, that is almost impossible to disprove. The chain paid a $1.2 million annual fee to keep the voice. The voice’s continued presence on the reservation line — after Bodett said he was no longer affiliated — is the most powerful possible evidence of consumer confusion.
The remedies. Lanham Act § 1117(a) provides for the defendant’s profits, the plaintiff’s damages, and the costs of the action. The court can also award attorneys’ fees in exceptional cases. A willful, post-termination use of a voice is the kind of “exceptional” case that gets fee awards. This is one reason the Bodett team stacked the Lanham Act on top of the contract claim.
The “Knowingly Benefits” Element: Why This Case Has Hotel/STR DNA
The Bodett case is not a TVPRA case. But the legal architecture the TVPRA uses — whoever knowingly benefits from participation in a venture that the person knew or should have known was engaged in an act in violation of this chapter — maps almost perfectly onto the way a hotel or short-term-rental chain uses an endorser’s identity. The chain benefits from the use. The chain knows or should know it does not have consent. The “venture” is the chain’s reservation system, its marketing, and its brand presentation. The Bodett team was not running a TVPRA case, but they were running the same kind of argument: the chain is liable not because one rogue manager decided to keep playing the recording, but because the chain as a whole was benefiting from the unauthorized use.
We mention this for a reason. If your voice, image, or name is being used by a hotel, a restaurant, a franchise, or any short-term-rental brand, the corporate beneficiary is on the hook — even if the decision to keep using the asset was made deep in a marketing department that the CEO never touched. Liability follows the benefit, not the bureaucracy. That is the rule that the Bodett team’s case theory pushed to its limit, and that is the rule that any of our clients with a stolen voice can lean on.
What Damages Were Worth: The Case Value of a Stolen Voice
The terms of the December 2025 settlement were not disclosed. We will not put a number on the settlement itself, because doing so without the actual agreement would be guessing. What we can do is walk you through the damage categories that drove the value of the case, so any brand owner reading this can size their own case in their head.
Category 1: The contract damages. The unpaid $1.2 million annual payment was the floor. The case could have recovered the unpaid amount plus interest. In many jurisdictions, a contract plaintiff can also recover consequential damages, including the value of the lost use of the contract — which, for a brand ambassador, is the endorsement value that was tied up in the chain’s exclusive use of the voice during the contract term.
Category 2: The Lanham Act damages. Section 1117(a) of the Lanham Act lets a plaintiff recover the defendant’s profits attributable to the infringing use, the plaintiff’s actual damages, and the costs of the action. For a chain the size of Motel 6, even a tiny per-call attribution of revenue to the recognizable voice produces a number that gets the case’s attention. In exceptional cases, the court can also award attorneys’ fees. A post-termination, knowing use of a recognizable voice is the textbook case for fee shifting.
Category 3: The New York right-of-publicity damages. Section 51 of the New York Civil Rights Law authorizes compensatory damages and exemplary (punitive) damages for a knowing use. The punitives are the multiplier. A defendant that knew the contract had been terminated and kept the voice on the reservation line anyway is, as a factual matter, the defendant that punitives were written for.
Category 4: Attorneys’ fees and costs. Both the Lanham Act (in exceptional cases) and the New York Civil Rights Law provide for fee shifting. The Lanham Act fee award in particular is a meaningful component of any settlement’s economic value to the plaintiff, because the plaintiff’s counsel did the work on a contingency or hybrid-fee basis.
The combined range we would have discussed with the client in mediation. Cases of this size and shape — a national chain, a one-year contract dispute with a high-profile voice, a Lanham Act claim with a clean willfulness fact pattern, and a New York right-of-publicity claim with punitive exposure — historically settle in a range that is a meaningful multiple of the contract’s annual fee, plus the Lanham Act profit disgorgement, plus the right-of-publicity punitives, plus the fee component. The size of the multiple depends on how long the chain kept using the voice, the chain’s knowledge of the contract breach, the chain’s internal communications, and the strength of the injunctive component.
We will not put a number on the Bodett settlement. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we will say is this: the case was settled, in part, because the chain’s exposure to a jury verdict on the right-of-publicity punitives alone was larger than the settlement value the chain was willing to accept. That is how these cases settle — when the defendant’s worst-case jury verdict on the punitive component exceeds the cost of making the case go away.
The Chain’s Defense Playbook: Three Plays, and the Counter to Each
Hotel and short-term-rental chains do not have a creative playbook for this kind of case; they have a reactive one. The Bodett defense filing in July 2025 is a textbook example. Here are the three plays we see in every endorsement case, and the counter to each.
Play 1: “The contract was breached first.” In the July 2025 filing, Motel 6 alleged that Bodett had breached the contract — and that the chain’s decision to continue using the voice was either authorized by the contract or excused by Bodett’s own breach. This is the “we’re the wronged party” move.
The counter. The chain’s filing is a litigation position, not a finding. The case file controls: when did the chain stop paying, what did the chain say about it, and did the chain ever formally assert a cure right under the contract? In a typical endorsement dispute, the chain’s “you breached first” allegation does not survive the first round of discovery, because the chain’s own internal communications will show the chain was aware of the breach and chose to continue using the asset anyway. The plaintiff can also stack a Lanham Act claim and a right-of-publicity claim that do not require any contract finding at all — the unauthorized use is the violation, regardless of which side breached first.
Play 2: “The voice is just a brand asset now.” The chain will argue that, after decades of use, the voice is part of the brand’s identity and that the brand has independent rights to it. This is the “you can’t take your voice with you” move.
The counter. A voice is not a copyright. The chain does not own the voice. The chain has a contract right to use the voice, which is bounded by the contract. After the contract is terminated — and especially after the chain has breached the contract by failing to pay — the chain has no right to continue using the voice. The Lanham Act and the right-of-publicity statute both recognize that the human being who creates a recognizable voice is the one who controls it, and that control does not transfer to the brand by operation of law.
Play 3: “The reservation line recordings are grandfathered.” The chain will argue that any existing recording of the voice, made during the contract term, can continue to be used. This is the “we already paid for those recordings” move.
The counter. A contract that has been terminated by the chain’s own breach does not give the chain a permanent license to existing recordings. A reasonable interpretation of most endorsement contracts is that the chain’s license to use existing recordings ends when the contract ends — and especially when the chain is the party that ended it. New York Civil Rights Law § 50 is unambiguous: the use of a voice for advertising purposes in New York without prior written consent is a misdemeanor, and the consent rule is not waivable by silence. If the chain wants to keep playing the recordings after the contract ends, the chain needs fresh consent. Without fresh consent, every minute of continued use is a new violation.
The pattern. Every hotel and short-term-rental defendant will run some combination of these three plays. The plaintiff wins not by refuting each play in isolation but by stacking the claims so that the case is not just a contract case. The Lanham Act and the right-of-publicity statute give the plaintiff independent grounds for relief that do not depend on the contract terms at all. That is why the Bodett team was not running a single-theory case.
Why These Cases Are Filed in Federal Court in Manhattan
The Bodett case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. There is a reason voice-and-endorsement cases gravitate to Manhattan federal court even when the defendant is a national chain headquartered in Texas or owned by a parent in India.
- Lanham Act jurisdiction. Federal-question jurisdiction is automatic for the Lanham Act claim. The court can hear the state-law contract and right-of-publicity claims in the same case under supplemental jurisdiction.
- Manhattan is the media-law capital. The judges in the Southern District have seen hundreds of false-endorsement and right-of-publicity cases. The discovery schedule is tight, the motions practice is sophisticated, and the parties know the playbook. That is good for the plaintiff, because the cases move.
- New York law is plaintiff-friendly on consent. New York Civil Rights Law § 50 is one of the strictest consent statutes in the country. A voice-stolen plaintiff who files in New York is filing under a statute that was written to do exactly what the plaintiff is asking it to do.
- Service of process is cleaner. Even when the ultimate parent is overseas, the U.S. operating subsidiary is in the United States, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure give the plaintiff a clear path to service, discovery, and personal jurisdiction.
If your voice, name, or likeness has been used by a hotel, a chain, or a short-term-rental brand, the choice of forum is a strategic decision — and the case the Bodett team filed shows what the right choice looks like.
Who You Are When You Call Us: Voice Actors, Musicians, Athletes, and Brand Owners Reading This
We do not write for the generic reader. We write for the person on the other end of this problem. If you are reading this page, you are likely one of the following:
- A voice actor or narrator whose voice has been used in advertising or on a brand platform after the relationship ended.
- A musician whose song or recording is still being used in a hotel lobby, an airline, a restaurant, or a streaming brand after the license expired.
- An athlete, model, or on-camera personality whose image is being used in marketing materials without a current contract.
- A creator or influencer whose name, face, or content has been used by a brand after the engagement ended.
- A small-business owner whose brand name, logo, or trade dress is being used by a chain or a franchisee.
- A photographer, artist, or designer whose work is being used by a hotel, a chain, or a short-term-rental brand without a license.
The legal architecture we have just walked you through applies to you. The Lanham Act, the right of publicity, the contract claim, the evidence clock, the defense playbook, the corporate-structure map — every one of these is your toolkit, not just the toolkit of a famous voice actor in a New York federal case.
What to Do Right Now If Your Voice, Name, or Likeness Is Being Used Without Permission
Step 1. Stop talking to the brand. Do not call the marketing director. Do not email the agency. Do not text the creative lead. Anything you say to the brand can be used against you in the discovery fight. From the moment you suspect unauthorized use, your communications with the brand should be in writing and through a lawyer.
Step 2. Preserve your own evidence. Save every email, every contract, every payment record, every text, every screenshot of the use. If the use is on a phone line, record your own call to the line (in a state where one-party consent recording is legal — most are) so you have a contemporaneous sample. If the use is on a website or in a video, archive the page with a timestamp tool.
Step 3. Identify the corporate family. Look at the chain’s website, the marketing footer, the privacy policy, the franchise disclosure documents, and the SEC filings (if the chain is public). Map the operating company, the holding company, the parent, and the ultimate parent. The Bodett case had a clean three-tier structure: G6, OYO, Prism. Most cases have a similar three-tier structure, and the right entity has to be named.
Step 4. Call a lawyer who has tried these cases. A free consultation is not a commitment — it is information. You will leave the call knowing exactly what your case is worth, what the evidence clock looks like, and what your options are. You will also know what you should not do while the case is being built. We handle these consultations every week.
Step 5. Let the lawyer send the preservation letter. A litigation hold letter sent the same day the lawyer is hired is the single most important move in any of these cases. The letter freezes the evidence, signals to the brand that the case is real, and creates a record that the brand cannot pretend it did not know.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a breach-of-contract case and a Lanham Act case for a voice actor?
A breach-of-contract case requires a contract. The plaintiff has to prove the contract existed, that the chain breached it, and what the contract was worth. A Lanham Act case does not require a contract at all. The plaintiff has to prove that the defendant used a distinctive identity (a recognizable voice) in commercial advertising in a way likely to cause confusion as to the person’s affiliation. The two cases are often stacked: the contract case gives the plaintiff the unpaid contract value, and the Lanham Act case gives the plaintiff the defendant’s profits and (in exceptional cases) the plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees. The right-of-publicity statute — New York Civil Rights Law § 51 in the Bodett case — gives the plaintiff a third, independent claim with punitive exposure. Stacking the three claims is the right move in any voice-stolen case.
Why does New York Civil Rights Law § 51 have only a one-year statute of limitations, and what does that mean for me?
The New York right-of-publicity statute has a one-year statute of limitations under § 51, measured from the first unauthorized use. This is the shortest clock in the typical voice-stolen case, and it is the reason a plaintiff has to move fast. If you suspect your voice, name, or likeness is being used by a hotel, a chain, or a short-term-rental brand, the one-year clock on the § 51 claim is the date that controls the filing decision. The contract claim (six years in New York under CPLR § 213(2)) and the Lanham Act claim (typically three years in New York under CPLR § 214(3)) give you more time, but the § 51 claim is the one that brings the punitive exposure, and you do not want to lose it. Call a lawyer the day you have evidence of the unauthorized use, not the day you decide to file suit.
What if the brand says the recordings were made during the contract and the chain has a “grandfathered” right to keep using them?
A contract that has been terminated by the brand’s own breach does not give the brand a permanent license to existing recordings. A reasonable interpretation of most endorsement contracts is that the brand’s license to use existing recordings ends when the contract ends, and especially when the brand is the party that ended it by missing payment. New York Civil Rights Law § 50 is unambiguous: the use of a voice for advertising purposes in New York without prior written consent is a misdemeanor. If the brand wants to keep playing the recordings after the contract ends, the brand needs fresh written consent. Without fresh consent, every minute of continued use is a new violation. A plaintiff can also pursue the Lanham Act theory — likelihood of confusion as to affiliation — for as long as the brand keeps playing the recordings.
What is the “knowingly benefits” element, and why does it matter in a voice-stolen case?
The “knowingly benefits” element is the legal hook that ties the brand to the unauthorized use even when the decision to keep using the asset was made deep in a marketing department the CEO never touched. The principle comes from the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (18 U.S.C. § 1595), which we have shown above, but the principle is universal: liability follows the benefit, not the bureaucracy. A brand that uses a recognizable voice to drive reservations benefits from the use. A brand that knew or should have known it did not have consent is on the hook. The corporate structure that sits between the marketing department and the parent does not insulate the parent. This is exactly the theory the Bodett team pushed to its limit, and it is the theory that any of our clients with a stolen voice can lean on.
What if the chain was bought by a bigger company after my contract ended?
The successor company inherits the liability. A change in the parent does not insulate a successor from a pre-existing liability for the unauthorized use of a recognizable voice. The principle is well established in both contract law (successor liability for predecessor obligations) and in the Lanham Act and right-of-publicity contexts (the corporate family that benefits from the use is the corporate family that is on the hook). The Motel 6 case shows exactly what this looks like in practice: G6, OYO, and the parent formerly known as Oravel Stays (now branded Prism) are all in the case file. The settlement had to address the entire corporate family. If you discover your chain has been bought by a bigger company, the bigger company is the entity we name alongside the chain.
How long does the case take to settle?
Most voice-and-endorsement cases of this shape settle between six and eighteen months after filing. The Motel 6 case was filed in June 2025 and settled in December 2025 — about six months. The timing depends on the defendant’s litigation posture, the strength of the evidence, the willingness of the defendant’s insurance carrier to fund a settlement, and the strength of the injunctive component. Cases that can be moved to trial in twelve to eighteen months (because the venue is a fast-track federal court like the Southern District of New York) tend to settle earlier than cases that are stuck in a slower state court.
What is the value of a voice-stolen case?
The honest answer is: it depends on the contract value, the length of the unauthorized use, the defendant’s willfulness, the chain’s knowledge of the breach, and the punitive exposure. Cases of this shape — national chain, high-profile voice, Lanham Act claim with a clean willfulness fact pattern, and a New York right-of-publicity claim with punitive exposure — historically settle in a range that is a meaningful multiple of the contract’s annual fee, plus the Lanham Act profit disgorgement, plus the right-of-publicity punitives, plus the fee component. The Bodett case was settled; terms were not disclosed. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can tell you is that the value of the case increases sharply with (a) the length of time the brand kept using the voice after termination, (b) the strength of the evidence of willfulness, and (c) the brand’s awareness of the breach. We size every case in the first conversation and we give you a real range, not a sales pitch.
What is the single most important thing I can do right now to protect my case?
Send a litigation hold letter. The single most important move in any of these cases is the preservation letter, sent the same day a lawyer is hired. The letter freezes the evidence — the chain’s IVR logs, the chain’s marketing files, the chain’s payment records, the chain’s internal communications about the decision to keep using the voice — and it creates a record that the chain cannot pretend it did not know. The letter has to be specific: it has to name every category of record (IVR logs, email, instant messaging, marketing files, contract files, payment records) and demand preservation across all of them. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes, but the cases that win are the cases where the evidence was frozen early. We send these letters the same day you call, and we are the firm that enforces them when the chain tries to clean house.
What if I do not have a written contract with the brand?
A written contract makes the breach-of-contract case cleaner, but it is not required for the Lanham Act case or the right-of-publicity case. A recognizable voice tied to a brand over years of use, even without a written contract, is enough to support a Lanham Act false-endorsement claim. Most state right-of-publicity statutes (including New York Civil Rights Law § 50) require written consent for the use of a voice in advertising — which means a brand that uses a recognizable voice without a written contract is, by definition, in violation of § 50. The contract is a force multiplier, not a precondition. A voice-stolen case without a contract is still a voice-stolen case, and the Lanham Act and the right-of-publicity statute are the spine of the claim.
Why do I need a trial firm and not a demand-letter firm?
A demand-letter firm sends a letter, negotiates a quick settlement, and moves on. A trial firm builds the case the way a jury is going to see it, names the right defendants the day the case is filed, freezes the evidence the day the case is filed, and tries the case if the brand will not pay what the case is worth. The Bodett case settled in part because the chain’s exposure to a jury verdict on the right-of-publicity punitives alone was larger than the settlement value the chain was willing to accept. A case only settles on those terms when the defendant believes the plaintiff will try it. The firms that send demand letters do not get those settlements, because the defendant knows the plaintiff will not try the case. We are the firm that tries the case. We work on contingency — no fee unless we win — and the first call is a free consultation with a real lawyer, not a screener. If you are reading this page, you already know your voice is worth fighting for. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911.