zlacker

"While Waits’ attorneys weren’t able to argue for copyright infringement (he didn’t own the rights to’ Step Right Up’), they were able to evoke the recent Midler v. Ford Motor case. When Bette Midler refused to appear in one of the car manufacturer’s adverts, they decided to license her 1972 track ‘Do You Want to Dance’ and hire a Bette-Milder lookalike instead. The singer sued Ford and won the case, with the court deciding that a singer with a “distinct” and “well known” voice also owned its likeness. To begin with, Frito-Lay argued that Waits wasn’t nearly famous enough for the precedent to apply. The court, on the other hand, disagreed and awarded Waits $2.6 million in damages."

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/when-tom-waits-sued-doritos/

>>mdange+(OP)
These are really interesting cases, and the opinions give a lot more detail.

Midler v Ford: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/849...

Waits v Frito-Lay: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/90...

One interesting thing is that these cases are really deep in common law. They are quite far removed from statues, and statues are cited in the opinion only to argue how they don't apply.

In these cases, the voice was "distinct", and they intentionally copied it. It's possible these don't apply to ScarJo, although the fact that they negotiated with her is a bad sign, since that was also a common fact in the prior cases.