Name, Image, and Likeness Clearance Checklist: Releases, Licenses, and Post-Mortem Rights

By Casey Scott McKay · 2025-08-04

This checklist is the working document for clearing name, image, likeness, and voice in a commercial campaign, and it runs eleven phases from scoping the use to escalating against a voice clone. It gives the frame audit that finds every identifiable person, the choice-of-law sequence that must be run before a word is drafted, the triage rules for releases already sitting in the archive, and the grant terms that decide whether a campaign is licensed or merely paid for. It covers the extra formalities for minors, union talent, and college athletes, including institutional disclosure windows, clearinghouse submission, Coogan trust set-asides, and the athlete-agent statutes that void contracts. It walks the estate diligence chain for deceased personalities, with the domicile proof, the state-by-state terms, and the California and New York registration prerequisites that estates routinely skip. It adds a synthetic-likeness screen for digital replicas, voice clones, and biometric scans, an insurance phase covering media liability and commercial general liability Coverage B, and a docketing phase that makes the expiry impossible to miss. It closes with the escalation sequence, a common-mistakes section, and a deadlines table covering disclosure windows, extension notices, destruction certificates, limitations periods, and the sixty-day anti-SLAPP clock.

IP and Technology > Right of Publicity | Checklist | Published 4 August 2025 - Updated 6 June 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. This is the working document for clearing name, image, likeness, and voice in a commercial campaign — eleven phases from scoping the use to escalating against a voice clone. It gives the frame audit that finds every identifiable person, the choice-of-law sequence that must run before a word is drafted, the triage rules for releases already sitting in the archive, and the grant terms that decide whether a campaign is licensed or merely paid for. It covers the extra formalities for minors, union talent, and college athletes: disclosure windows, clearinghouse submission, Coogan trust set-asides, and the athlete-agent statutes that void contracts. It walks the estate diligence chain for deceased personalities — domicile proof, state-by-state terms, and the California and New York registrations estates routinely skip. It adds a synthetic-likeness screen for digital replicas and biometric scans, an insurance phase, and a docketing phase that makes the expiry impossible to miss. It closes with common mistakes and a deadlines table covering everything from the five-day NIL disclosure to the sixty-day anti-SLAPP clock.

Keywords: nil clearance checklist · likeness release · appearance release · endorsement agreement · right of publicity · post-mortem right of publicity · successor in interest registration · california civil code 3344.1 · new york civil rights law 50-f · digital replica rider · california labor code 927 · elvis act · coogan trust · ftc endorsement guides · biometric information privacy act · crowd shot clearance · usage sunset · sell-off period · media liability insurance · anti-slapp

What this checklist is for

You are about to publish something containing a real human being — a face, a name, a voice, a jersey number, a race car, a catchphrase — and you need to prove, on demand, that you were allowed to. Work this top to bottom and you finish with a clearance file that answers a demand letter in an afternoon instead of a quarter.

Who should use it. In-house marketing counsel, agency business affairs, production legal, talent-side counsel, and solos with a first endorsement deal. Litigators can run Phases 2, 3, and 11 as a claim audit.

What this is not. A course in the doctrine. Why the right exists, which First Amendment test applies where, and how copyright preemption sorts out are in Your Face Is Not Public Domain. The reasoning behind each line below, with model language for every clause named, is in Clearing and Licensing Name, Image, and Likeness.

Before you start, have in hand: the creative brief and media plan with territories and flight dates; the offline edit and every raw plate; every agreement touching the assets (talent, crew, stock, location, prior releases); the legal names, loan-out entities, and domiciles of everyone being paid; the client's full CGL and media liability policies, not the certificate; and a docketing system you actually use.

Ground Truth — the worked matter. Vela Athletic, a Boise footwear brand, has approved a twelve-month North American campaign: a hero film, six cutdowns, out-of-home in eleven markets, paid social, retail signage, a co-branded shoe, and a Spanish-language version for Mexico. Inside it: Marisol Reyes (junior middle-distance runner at a public university in Oregon, $45,000 NIL deal), Priya Raghunathan (retired Olympic marathoner, New York domiciliary, anchor talent), Walt Brannigan (running icon, died 2011 domiciled in Tennessee, archival footage opens the film), a Chicago finish-line crowd plate with ~200 identifiable faces, a macro of a forearm tattoo on a paid fit model, a restored 1974 team van with distinctive livery, and a synthetic Spanish voiceover built from Priya's English sessions.

| Phase | You finish with | Elapsed | | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Scope the use | A rights grid: one row per person, six columns of use | 2–4 hrs | | 2. Find every identifiable person | A frame register keyed to release numbers | 1–3 days | | 3. Fix choice of law | A governing-law call per person, in writing | 1–3 hrs each | | 4. Inventory existing releases | Legacy assets triaged clean / curable / kill | 3–10 days | | 5. Paper the grant | Executed releases and licenses, scoped and dated | 2–6 wks | | 6. Minors, unions, NIL | Court approvals, trust accounts, disclosure receipts | 1–4 wks | | 7. Estates and post-mortem | Domicile proof, chain of title, registrations | 3–10 wks | | 8. Synthetic likeness screen | Replica rider, provenance record, BIPA consents | 1–3 wks | | 9. Insurance | Bound media liability, confirmed Coverage B, DDD | 2–4 wks | | 10. Docket and register | A usage register with a named human per asset | 1 wk to build | | 11. Escalate | A preserved record and a call on route and forum | 48 hrs |

Phase 1 — Scope the use before you scope the rights

[ ] Convert the creative brief into a rights grid: one row per identifiable person, six columns — attributes, media, territory, term, exclusivity, tail.
- Trap. "All media now known or hereafter devised, in perpetuity, throughout the universe" is not a scope. Talent counsel prices it at three to ten times a defined grant, and Cal. Lab. Code § 927 refuses to honor it for replica uses.
[ ] List attributes individually — name, professional name, nickname, image, likeness, voice, signature, jersey number, catchphrase, biometric scan. Do not write "likeness" and stop.
- Authority. Voice and biometrics carry their own statutes: Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 47-25-1101 to -1108 protects voice expressly; 740 ILCS 14/15(b) governs face and body scans on separate terms.
[ ] Enumerate media, marking each as advertising, merchandising, or editorial.
- Authority. Cal. Civ. Code § 3344.1(a)(2) exempts books, films, and audiovisual works from the post-mortem statute; § 3344.1(a)(3) pulls the exemption back for anything that is itself an advertisement. The seam between the documentary and the tote bag is where estates sue.
[ ] Pick one term trigger — execution, delivery, or first public use — and add an outside date if you choose first public use.
- Trap. First public use plus a slipped launch silently extends the exclusivity the brand pays for without extending the usage it receives.
[ ] Define the tail now: sell-off, archival, awards submissions, portfolio use, historical brand pages, organic posts you cannot delete. Assets outlive campaigns, and the tail is where the claim comes from.

Ground Truth. The grid produced 214 rows — six named talent, 208 crowd faces. That ratio says where the risk lives: not in the negotiated deals, which have lawyers on both sides, but in the mass of unnamed people nobody assigned to anyone.

Phase 2 — Find every identifiable person in the frame

[ ] Screen the full offline edit at quarter speed and log a timecode for every recognizable human — reflections, background monitors, photographs on set walls, and crowd faces held longer than a beat.
- Authority. Identifiability clears low. A claim proceeded where a mother and child were shot from behind and recognized by a family member. Cohen v. Herbal Concepts, Inc., 63 N.Y.2d 379, 384 (1984).
[ ] Log every object that identifies a person even with no face in frame: liveries, uniforms, numbers, distinctive equipment, silhouettes, signature gestures.
- Authority. Motschenbacher v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 498 F.2d 821, 827 (9th Cir. 1974) (race car pinstripes, driver not visible); Newcombe v. Adolf Coors Co., 157 F.3d 686, 692-93 (9th Cir. 1998) (a pitcher's windup); Carson v. Here's Johnny Portable Toilets, Inc., 698 F.2d 831 (6th Cir. 1983) (catchphrase alone).
[ ] Give every logged person a status — Released, Under Negotiation, Unidentified, Blur/Replace, Cut. No row stays blank at picture lock.
[ ] Test the incidental-use assumption rather than relying on it.
- Authority. There is no crowd exemption. Courts weigh duration against the length of the work, independent commercial value, significance, and relationship to content. Davis v. Electronic Arts, Inc., 775 F.3d 1172, 1179-80 (9th Cir. 2015).
- Trap. In written-consent states, venue signage is mitigation, not consent. 765 ILCS 1075/20 requires previous written consent; N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 50 requires written consent. A sign is neither.
[ ] Split the three clearances clients merge into one: identity, copyright, trademark. A likeness release conveys no copyright, a copyright license conveys no identity rights, and neither reaches the logo on the jersey.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 204(a) requires a signed writing for any transfer of copyright ownership — which is why "we paid the photographer" is not an answer. Work the chain through Copyright Ownership and Chain-of-Title Checklist and the classification question in Who Owns the Work.
[ ] Clear tattoos, murals, background art, and any music in frame or on the track as copyright, separately.
- Trap. The tattoo cases split: Solid Oak Sketches, LLC v. 2K Games, Inc., 449 F. Supp. 3d 333 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) (de minimis, implied license, fair use for the publisher), against Alexander v. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., 489 F. Supp. 3d 812 (S.D. Ill. 2020) (jury question). An artist license runs $250 to $1,500. Buy it. For music, run Clearing a Track and the Music Clearance Checklist in parallel.
[ ] Screen third-party logos and league marks left in frame with Descriptive and Nominative Fair Use and the Trademark Fair Use Audit Checklist.

Ground Truth. Eleven faces in the Chicago plate survived the crew's blocking rule and could not be traced. Blur cost $4,200 in VFX and two days; reshoot cost $61,000. Vela blurred. The 1974 van needed two clearances nobody budgeted: the collector owns the vehicle, and Brannigan's estate controls the identity the livery evokes.

Phase 3 — Fix choice of law, person by person

[ ] Record each living person's state of domicile, not the shoot location. Most courts apply the law of the plaintiff's domicile to the existence and scope of the right.
[ ] Record each deceased person's domicile at death and treat it as dispositive until proven otherwise.
- Authority. Cairns v. Franklin Mint Co., 292 F.3d 1139, 1147-48 (9th Cir. 2002) (English domicile, no post-mortem right, claim gone); Milton H. Greene Archives, Inc. v. Marilyn Monroe LLC, 692 F.3d 983, 999-1000 (9th Cir. 2012) (estate estopped after decades of contrary probate filings).
- Trap. Washington applies its statute regardless of domicile at death, Wash. Rev. Code § 63.60.010, sustained as applied in Experience Hendrix, L.L.C. v. HendrixLicensing.com, Ltd., 762 F.3d 829 (9th Cir. 2014). It is the one place domicile may not end the inquiry.
[ ] Map the distribution footprint and identify the most protective state whose residents will see the work. Draft to that state, never to the median.
[ ] Confirm the composite your paper must satisfy: New York's writing requirement (N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 50); Illinois's previous-written-consent rule (765 ILCS 1075/20, prevailing-party fees at 765 ILCS 1075/55); California's specificity expectations, driven by the two-way fee clause in Cal. Civ. Code § 3344(a); and the replica statutes (Cal. Lab. Code § 927, N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 50-f, Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 47-25-1101 to -1108).
[ ] Write the call into the file as a one-paragraph memo per named person.
- Trap. A governing-law clause binds the parties to the contract. It does not bind the stranger in the crowd plate, and it cannot manufacture a post-mortem right the decedent's domicile never granted.

Ground Truth. Marisol is Oregon-domiciled — no statute, so the claim rides on the common-law appropriation tort. Priya is New York-domiciled: signed writing, full stop. The plate was shot in Illinois, putting IRPA's written-consent rule and fee-shifting over 208 of 214 rows. Brannigan routes to Tennessee, and that nearly killed the film.

Phase 4 — Inventory the releases you already hold

[ ] Pull every release, appearance form, testimonial consent, stock license, and employment agreement touching an asset still live anywhere. One sheet: person, date signed, media, territory, term, expiry.
[ ] Triage each row Clean (unexpired, media enumerated, territory covers the run), Curable (expired but the person is reachable and unaggrieved — buy a retroactive license before they retain counsel), or Kill (unreachable person, unwritten consent in a writing state, or a grant that plainly does not reach the use).
[ ] Read the stock library terms for every licensed asset in a hero position, and demand the underlying model release for each.
- Trap. Three failure modes recur: editorial-only assets with no model release; sensitive-use restrictions barring health, addiction, political, or adult subject matter; and releases that do not cover packaging, your territory, or a fifteen-year run. Downing v. Abercrombie & Fitch, 265 F.3d 994, 1002-04 (9th Cir. 2001).
[ ] Sweep for the two chronic leaks: expired campaign assets still on the site, and departed employees still in bios and testimonials.
- Authority. Christoff v. Nestlé USA, Inc., 47 Cal. 4th 468 (2009) — a photograph licensed for limited use in 1986, still on Taster's Choice labels sixteen years later, $15.6 million verdict before reversal. The launch-side version of this sweep is in the Website and App Launch Legal Checklist.
[ ] Flag every asset whose only consent is oral or implied where the audience includes New York or Illinois. Those are Kill rows however friendly the relationship.

Phase 5 — Pick the instrument and paper the grant

[ ] Choose deliberately among release (a waiver and covenant not to sue, for crowds and non-professionals), license (a defined grant for defined consideration, for anyone paid to endorse), and assignment (outright transfer, available only in property-rooted states — elsewhere the most you get is a waiver, which does not travel with the asset). See Assignments vs. Licenses.
[ ] Define Attributes by schedule, enumerate Licensed Media, and add the reservation: any medium not listed is reserved to Talent; no license is granted by implication, estoppel, or course of dealing.
- Why. Without the reservation, a court asks what the parties intended about a medium that did not exist. With it, the answer is written down.
- Trap. "Including but not limited to" produces the argument, three years on, that "all digital media" included a model trained on the footage. Enumerate, then add a priced change-order mechanism.
[ ] Grant voice as recorded during the Sessions, not "voice," and carve replica rights out of Attributes entirely.
- Authority. Midler v. Ford Motor Co., 849 F.2d 460, 463 (9th Cir. 1988); Waits v. Frito-Lay, Inc., 978 F.2d 1093 (9th Cir. 1992). The line between a recorded performance and the voice itself governs every synthetic-voice question downstream.
[ ] Set exclusivity with all three variables fixed: what is excluded (the Category, defined functionally and by a schedule of named brands), who is bound, and how long it survives the usage term.
- Trap. Never let a Category clause override a school, league, or governing-body uniform obligation. An athlete cannot contract that away, and a brand that ignores it has bought a breach it will never enforce.
[ ] Include a tiered morals clause with a suspension mechanic before termination, and a staged removal timetable — digital in 10 business days, out-of-home in 30, printed retail in 90.
- Why. "Cease all use immediately" is not performable across eleven out-of-home markets. Deadlines someone can hit and document beat promises nobody can keep.
[ ] Write the usage sunset as a clock time on a date, and price the extension in the agreement. The most useful sentence in an endorsement deal tells a marketing director, without calling counsel, exactly what another year costs.
[ ] Add the FTC covenant — compliance with 16 C.F.R. pt. 255, disclosure format in a schedule, placed above any "more" truncation and never only in hashtags or a bio.
- Authority. 16 C.F.R. § 255.5 requires disclosure of material connections; the FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 C.F.R. pt. 465, adds civil penalty exposure for fake and undisclosed endorsements, including AI-generated testimonials from people who do not exist.
[ ] For a co-branded product, clear the name on its own track — Trademark Clearance Search Checklist and Running a Full Trademark Clearance Search — and budget the USPTO base application fee of $350 per class.
- Trap. 15 U.S.C. § 1052(c) bars registering a mark identifying a particular living individual without written consent, sustained against First Amendment challenge in Vidal v. Elster, 602 U.S. 286 (2024). Filing on someone's name is not a workaround; it is a second dispute. See The Section 2 Bars.
[ ] Borrow the architecture from Drafting a Trademark License That Survives, How to Draft a Trademark License Agreement, and the Trademark License Agreement — Template — with one correction: a publicity license carries no quality-control duty, so naked licensing is not the failure mode here. Scope creep is.

Ground Truth. Vela's term sheet said "perpetual, worldwide, all media." Priya's agent priced it at $1.4 million. The executed deal is twelve months, North America, enumerated media, two priced options, and a separate replica rider — $310,000 all-in. Same creative, one-fifth the cost, and a docketed expiry.

Phase 6 — Minors, unions, and the NIL compliance stack

[ ] Confirm the endorser's age on the day of signature, not the day of the shoot.
[ ] For a minor, obtain a parent or guardian signature and petition for court approval — Cal. Fam. Code § 6750 et seq. or N.Y. Arts & Cult. Aff. Law § 35.03.
- Why. Without approval the contract, license included, is voidable at the minor's election; Cal. Fam. Code § 6710 permits disaffirmance before majority or within a reasonable time after.
- Authority. California approval triggers the Coogan requirement — 15% of gross into a blocked trust, deposited by the employer within 15 business days of receiving the account information. Cal. Fam. Code § 6752. New York's child performer trust works the same way.
[ ] Confirm SAG-AFTRA signatory status before the shoot if any performer is union; a non-signatory brand cannot fix this afterward. Session fees, use payments, thirteen-week holding-fee cycles, and the twenty-one-month maximum period of use are the shared vocabulary even in non-union deals.
[ ] For a college athlete, run four layers and collect a receipt for each.

| Layer | Source | What it requires | | --- | --- | --- | | State NIL statute | State code, e.g. Cal. Educ. Code § 67456 | Category restrictions; right to representation; often disclosure | | Institutional policy | The school's NIL policy | Disclosure to compliance; conflict review against school sponsors; permission for school marks | | Clearinghouse review | House settlement architecture | Submission of third-party deals at or above $600; review for valid business purpose and compensation range | | Athlete-agent regulation | RUAAA (state) and SPARTA, 15 U.S.C. §§ 7801-7807 | Agent registration; conspicuous statutory warning; cancellation right; no pre-signing inducements |

[ ] Draft deliverables a reviewer can price: named posts, named appearances, named dates, named assets. The "valid business purpose" test exists to catch endorsement fees that are pay-for-play in substance, and vague deliverables read as pretext.
[ ] Add a compliance contingency — termination without penalty if the review body declines or the institution finds performance would jeopardize eligibility, with payment only for services rendered.
[ ] Check whether the person negotiating for the athlete needs a license.
- Authority. SPARTA makes it an unfair or deceptive act to give false or misleading information, to provide anything of value before the agency contract is signed, or to omit the required warning. 15 U.S.C. § 7802. In California, anyone procuring employment for an artist needs a talent agency license, Cal. Lab. Code §§ 1700 et seq., and the Labor Commissioner can void an unlicensed agent's contract. "NIL advisors" are exactly the exposure.
[ ] Confirm no restricted category is implicated — alcohol, tobacco and vaping, cannabis, sports wagering, firearms, adult content. State law, institutional policy, and governing-body rules each keep their own list.

Ground Truth. Marisol's agreement went to compliance on day three, the clearinghouse on day four, and cleared on day nineteen. Her counsel added a covenant Vela did not expect and should have: Company will not use Attributes in any medium in which Talent's participation is not disclosed as a paid partnership. That is an FTC obligation running toward the brand, and it is fair.

Phase 7 — Estates and post-mortem rights

[ ] Prove domicile at death with documents before you value the deal: death certificate, probate petition and letters, estate tax return if available, several years of state income tax filings, voter registration, driver's license, and any homestead or property tax exemption.
- Trap. Inconsistencies are the norm and they decide cases. Greene turned on decades of paperwork nobody drafted with publicity rights in mind.
[ ] Confirm the domicile state recognizes a descendible right, and for how long.

| State | Term | Formality | | --- | --- | --- | | California | 70 years | Registration with the Secretary of State before recovering damages, Cal. Civ. Code § 3344.1(f) | | New York | 40 years | Registration required to assert a deceased-personality claim, N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 50-f(7) | | Tennessee | 10 years, then indefinite with continuous use; ends after 2 years of non-use | None; Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-25-1104 | | Indiana | 100 years | Optional registration; reaches distinctive appearance, gestures, mannerisms, Ind. Code § 32-36-1-7 | | Nevada | 50 years | Secretary of State registration is a condition of the right | | Washington | 10 years (individuals) / 75 (personalities) | None; applies regardless of domicile at death | | Texas | 50 years | Registration affects notice; post-mortem only | | Illinois | 50 years | Written consent required; fee-shifting to prevailing party | | Massachusetts | No post-mortem right | Statute reaches name, portrait, or picture only |

[ ] Trace the chain: will or intestacy → letters testamentary or of administration → residuary distribution → assignments → any later transfer or security interest. Where the rights sit in an LLC, get the operating agreement and members' consents.
- Why. Statutes set a default cascade when the will is silent, and it rarely matches what the family assumes. The discipline in Trademarks in the Deal and the Trademark Due Diligence Checklist transfers directly.
[ ] File or confirm the successor-in-interest registration in California and New York before any use begins. California conditions damages on it; New York conditions the claim on it. It is a short Secretary of State form and a nominal fee — confirm the current amount on the office's schedule.
[ ] Demand a schedule of every outstanding license and make the absence of undisclosed or inconsistent grants a specific, uncapped representation.
- Trap. Estates grant overlapping exclusives constantly, usually because different family members signed different deals in different decades.
[ ] Back the warranty with a specific indemnity plus escrow or holdback on any multi-year merchandising deal. An estate's representation is worth what the estate is worth.
[ ] Where the right may have lapsed or the chain has a hole, choose consciously: litigate the lapse, buy a quitclaim plus covenant not to sue from every plausible claimant, or restructure from merchandise to editorial so the claim is not available at all.

Ground Truth — the one that nearly killed the film. Brannigan died in 2011 domiciled in Tennessee. Diligence found a licensed apparel program running 2012 to 2019, then nothing — six years of non-use against a two-year lapse trigger, Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-25-1104. Options: argue the lapse (cheap until the family sues and Vela is litigating "continuous" in a Tennessee court); buy a quitclaim for $35,000 in eight days; or recut the open for $18,000 and lose the spine of the spot. Vela bought the quitclaim — a covenant not to sue from the only person with standing beats a strong legal argument. It did not buy the copyright in the archival footage, owned by the broadcaster that shot it: a separate $22,000 license.

Phase 8 — The AI and synthetic likeness screen

[ ] Ask the production one question in writing: was any part of this generated, enhanced, translated, or de-aged by a model? Get the answer from the agency and the vendor separately.
[ ] For any digital replica of a real person, execute a separate rider with separate consideration, describing the permitted use with specificity.
- Authority. Cal. Lab. Code § 927 voids a provision permitting a digital replica in place of work the performer would otherwise have performed unless the use is described with reasonable specificity and the performer was represented by counsel or a union. It is a mandatory contract term that overrides the signed agreement; a blanket all-media grant does not clear a replica.
- Trap. Never bundle the replica fee into the base fee. Separate pricing shows a court the parties bargained over the replica rather than burying it in boilerplate.
[ ] Include four covenants most drafts omit: excluded uses (no unapproved statements, no third-party endorsements, no political or advocacy content); custody in a segregated access-controlled environment; destruction within a stated number of days after sunset, certified in writing; and vendor flow-down binding the vendor to the same terms and to no retention or training on the inputs.
- Why. A replica is not just a use right. It is an artifact persisting on someone else's infrastructure, reusable by anyone with access.
[ ] For a deceased person's replica, add the estate consents the post-mortem statutes require — Cal. Civ. Code § 3344.1 as amended, and N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 50-f for a deceased performer's replica in a scripted audiovisual work or live musical performance.
[ ] For a wholly synthetic presenter, build a provenance record: prompts, reference images, model and version, vendor terms, and a signed agency attestation that no living or deceased individual was used as a reference.
[ ] Run a reverse-recognition test — show the output to a naive panel, ask unprompted whether it looks or sounds like anyone they can name, and document the result.
- Why. Identifiability is the whole case. Lohan v. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., 31 N.Y.3d 111 (2018), held a computer-generated image can be a "portrait"; Lohan lost only because the character was a generic beachgoer. The methodology is the survey discipline in Consumer Surveys in Trademark Cases and Commissioning and Attacking a Trademark Survey.
[ ] If the production scans a face or body, execute a BIPA-compliant written release with a published retention and destruction schedule — a separate document from the publicity release.
- Authority. 740 ILCS 14/15(a)-(b); damages of $1,000 for negligent and $5,000 for reckless or intentional violations, 740 ILCS 14/20. Texas and Washington have analogues.
[ ] Screen the tool itself where Tennessee law is in play. The ELVIS Act creates liability for distributing software or a service whose primary purpose is producing a particular individual's photograph, voice, or likeness without authorization, and gives exclusive licensees standing. Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 47-25-1101 to -1108. The theory is untested; the vendor diligence it forces is not optional.
[ ] Cross-check output ownership, training-data warranties, and disclosure against the Generative AI IP Compliance Checklist, Deploying Generative AI Without Losing Your IP, and Who Owns What the Machine Made.

Ground Truth. Priya's Spanish voiceover rider priced at $85,000 — 27% of her deal — with a thirty-day destruction certificate and a vendor flow-down. The agency called it excessive for one market. It was not: Vela bought a permanent capability constrained by contract, and the price reflects the constraint being real.

Phase 9 — Insurance and risk transfer

[ ] Read the policies, not the certificate. Start with media liability / errors and omissions: confirm it is in force for the campaign period and that right of publicity, right of privacy, and false endorsement are covered offenses rather than exclusions.
- Trap. These policies routinely condition coverage on the insured following a clearance procedure. The file this checklist produces is what satisfies that condition. An insurer that asks for the file and gets a shrug has its denial.
[ ] Commercial general liability, Coverage B. Confirm the "personal and advertising injury" section includes the standard ISO enumerated offense of oral or written publication, in any manner, of material that violates a person's right of privacy — then read the intellectual property exclusion.
- Why. In most modern forms that exclusion is broad enough to swallow the grant for anything pleaded as an IP claim, which is exactly how plaintiff's counsel will plead it. Coverage B is a partial answer, not a plan.
[ ] Death, disability, and disgrace. Price it above roughly $2 million in combined production and media spend; it reimburses reshoots, replacement talent, packaging revisions, and unamortized media.
[ ] Notify every potentially responsive insurer — primary, umbrella, excess, and cancelled policies in force when the conduct may have begun — on receipt of a demand letter, not on service of a complaint. The duty to defend can attach where the duty to indemnify never will, and late notice is the cheapest defense an insurer has.
[ ] Match indemnities to the risk — talent for breach of its representations, the brand for content and placement. Get additional-insured endorsements from the production company and agency, and confirm the agency's policy is not a claims-made form expiring the month after delivery.
[ ] For estate deals, layer escrow or holdback over the indemnity. Insurance does not fix a chain-of-title hole; it only pays for the argument about it.

Phase 10 — Docket the sunsets and build the usage register

[ ] Build a usage register, one row per licensed asset: asset ID and thumbnail; person(s) depicted; agreement reference and signature date; media and territory granted; usage start and sunset date; extension notice deadline (sunset minus 45 days); extension fee; exclusivity end date; replica flag and destruction date; and a named human who owns the takedown.
- Why. Publicity rights have no renewal system to remind you. The calendar is the entire compliance regime — import the habit from trademark practice, per Docketing Deadlines.
[ ] Automate a weekly report of every asset sunsetting within 60 days, routed to marketing and legal together.
[ ] Run a quarterly sweep of the website, retail signage inventory, partner and distributor sites, app stores, and the social archive, plus an annual audit on the same calendar as the Annual Trademark Portfolio Review Checklist.
[ ] Add a departure step to offboarding: when an employee, spokesperson, advisor, or ambassador leaves, a named person strips their headshot, bio, quote, and testimonial from every property within 30 days.
- Why. Employment ending neither ends consent nor continues it. The answer usually turns on an employment agreement that says nothing.
[ ] Store one package per campaign: rights grid, choice-of-law memos, executed releases and licenses, registration confirmations, replica riders and destruction certificates, BIPA consents, provenance record. Retain for the longest applicable limitations period plus two years.

Phase 11 — Escalate: unresolved clearances and third-party misuse

[ ] Preserve before you notify. Full-page captures with URLs and timestamps, archived copies through an independent service, the ad library entry for paid placements, the seller identity and listing for merchandise, and a purchase of the product with a receipt.
- Why. Screenshots without provenance get excluded; captures with hash values and a declaration do not. Standards are in the Evidence and Expert Witness Toolkit.
[ ] Identify each claim separately. The elements, damages, and fee rules differ.

| Claim | Damages | Fees | | --- | --- | --- | | Cal. Civ. Code § 3344 | $750 minimum, actual, profits with burden shift, punitives | Prevailing party — both directions | | California common law | Actual, profits, punitives on conscious disregard | No | | N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 51 | Compensatory; exemplary in the jury's discretion on knowing use | No | | N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 50-f | Greater of $2,000 or compensatory, plus profits | No | | 765 ILCS 1075 | Greater of actual or $1,000, plus profits | Prevailing party, discretionary | | Lanham Act § 43(a), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(A) | Injunction, profits, damages under 15 U.S.C. § 1117 | Exceptional cases only |

[ ] Price the downside before sending anything.
- Trap. Cal. Civ. Code § 3344(a) awards fees to the prevailing party. A weak claim against a well-funded defendant is a fee exposure, not a lottery ticket.
- Trap. If the use is expressive and you sue in California, budget for an anti-SLAPP motion under Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16 — filed within 60 days of service, § 425.16(f), with mandatory fees to a prevailing defendant, § 425.16(c)(1). The Ninth Circuit permits it in federal court; the Second, Fifth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits do not. Screen pre-launch with the Expressive Use and Parody Risk Checklist and Fair Use Risk Assessment Checklist; the motion practice is in Litigating Expressive-Use Trademark Disputes.
[ ] Draft the demand letter knowing what it does.
- Trap. In California a demand letter creates the § 3344 knowledge element for every day of continued use after receipt. Identify the use precisely, name the statute and the attribute, state a dated demand, and include a preservation notice. Construction rules in Sending an Effective Cease-and-Desist Letter and the Cease-and-Desist Letter — Template; from the other chair, Responding to a Cease-and-Desist Letter.
[ ] For platform content, file in order: a § 512 notice for any copyright you own, then impersonation and synthetic-media reports under each platform's own policy, then the payment processor and registrar.
- Trap. 17 U.S.C. § 512 governs copyright only. A likeness complaint is not a takedown notice, and whether the platform is even reachable turns on an unresolved split under 47 U.S.C. § 230(e)(2). See The DMCA Safe Harbor, the DMCA Takedown Notice Checklist, and the routes in the Online Brand Protection Toolkit.
[ ] If a launch is imminent, move for preliminary relief on the ordinary four factors with a bond under Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(c) — mechanics in Moving for a TRO or Preliminary Injunction and the Preliminary Injunction Motion Checklist. Delay kills the motion; pre-filing assembly is in the Pre-Litigation Enforcement Checklist.
[ ] For an anonymous operator, plan the unmasking: Doe complaint, then Fed. R. Civ. P. 45 subpoenas to the platform, registrar, CDN, and payment processor. Budget $15,000 to $40,000 and six to ten weeks to reach a name, and expect a shell.
[ ] Decide honestly whether to litigate. Against an offshore judgment-proof operator the realistic objectives are permanent removal, payment-rail disruption, search de-indexing, and a record supporting the next takedown. Against a real company that bought "influencer content" from a broker, the claims stack is worth a great deal. Monetary proof follows the Trademark Monetary Recovery Checklist; the confusion element is the ordinary one with a persona in place of the mark — Proving Likelihood of Confusion.

Common Mistakes

One document doing three jobs. A "release" covering identity but not copyright, or the reverse. Three rights, three owners, three signatures. This is the defect behind most pulled campaigns.

Treating signage as consent. New York and Illinois require a writing. A sign at the gate is a mitigation measure, not compliance.

Perpetual buyouts bought by procurement. A perpetual grant costs three to ten times a twelve-month grant and buys an asset with an eighteen-month useful life. Buy twelve months with two priced options. The exception is packaging, where a mid-run label change is genuinely expensive.

Bundling the replica fee. Under Cal. Lab. Code § 927, specificity and representation are enforceability conditions. A replica right buried in a base fee looks exactly like the boilerplate the statute was written to void.

Congratulating an athlete with the logo attached. Jordan v. Jewel Food Stores, Inc., 743 F.3d 509, 518-21 (7th Cir. 2014), held a full-page tribute with a logo and slogan was commercial speech. Standing policy: no third-party name or image in brand-owned social content without a license or a pure editorial treatment.

Letting a documentary release drift into an ad. If the release did not enumerate advertising, the fifteen-second paid-social cut is not covered. Take separate advertising consents at the shoot, always.

Assuming an impersonator is a workaround. Midler and Waits hold that deliberate imitation to sell a product is itself the appropriation, and casting notes asking for "a Tom Waits type" are devastating on punitive damages.

Skipping the estate registration. California conditions damages on it; New York conditions the claim on it. Both are short forms estates forget until the demand letter is already stale.

Docketing nothing. Christoff is the whole argument. Every merits loss in this field traces to a date nobody wrote down.

Deadlines at a Glance

| Deadline | Clock | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | FTC material-connection disclosure | In each post, at publication | 16 C.F.R. §§ 255.5, pt. 465 | | NIL disclosure to the institution | Commonly 5–7 days from execution | State NIL statute and school policy | | Clearinghouse submission | Deals at or above $600, before or promptly after execution | House settlement architecture | | Coogan trust deposit | 15% of gross, within 15 business days of receiving account information | Cal. Fam. Code § 6752 | | Union holding fee / maximum period of use | Every 13 weeks / 21 months | SAG-AFTRA commercials framework | | Extension notice to keep a license alive | Sunset minus 45 days, as drafted | The agreement — nothing else will remind you | | Staged takedown after termination | Digital 10 business days; OOH 30 days; print retail 90 days | The agreement | | Sell-off of manufactured product | 120 days after sunset, as drafted | The agreement | | Replica destruction certificate | 30 days after sunset, as drafted | The rider; Cal. Lab. Code § 927 context | | BIPA destruction | Purpose satisfied or 3 years from last interaction, whichever first | 740 ILCS 14/15(a) | | Notice to insurers | On receipt of a demand letter | Policy conditions | | California post-mortem term | 70 years from death; register before damages accrue | Cal. Civ. Code § 3344.1(f) | | New York post-mortem term | 40 years from death; register before asserting | N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 50-f(7) | | Tennessee post-mortem lapse | Ends after 2 years of non-use following the 10-year term | Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-25-1104 | | Limitations — New York § 51 | 1 year from first publication | N.Y. C.P.L.R. 215(3) | | Limitations — California | Generally 2 years from first publication | Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 339(1) | | Limitations — Illinois | 1 year from first publication | 735 ILCS 5/13-201 | | Anti-SLAPP special motion to strike | Within 60 days of service | Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16(f) |

The rule under all of it. The single publication rule starts the limitations clock at first distribution, not at each impression. A national campaign is one publication. Republication in a new medium or edition can restart it; a continuing-violation theory usually will not save a stale claim. Nussenzweig v. diCorcia, 9 N.Y.3d 184 (2007).