Can a Company Use Your Face or Voice in an Ad Without Asking? (California Law)

You open a magazine, scroll a website, or drive past a billboard and there you are: your photo, or a voice that sounds exactly like yours, selling a product you never endorsed. It feels wrong, and in California it usually is. The legal idea at work is called the right of publicity, the right to control how your identity is used for someone else’s commercial gain. This guide explains, in plain English, what that right covers, what California’s statutes say, the brand-new laws aimed at AI deepfakes, where free speech draws the line, and what you can do if it happens to you. For the wider picture of how these rights fit together, see our California IP pillar guide.

What the right of publicity protects

The right of publicity protects the commercial value of your identity. In California it exists in two layers that work side by side: a common law right developed by the courts, and a statutory right written into the Civil Code. You can often bring claims under both.

At its core, the right covers the recognizable markers of who you are:

• Name — your actual name, and sometimes a nickname or stage name people associate with you.
• Photograph or image — any picture in which you are “readily identifiable,” meaning an ordinary viewer could reasonably tell it is you.
• Likeness — a drawing, painting, look-alike, or other depiction that calls you to mind even if it is not a literal photo.
• Voice — your actual voice, and, as California courts have recognized, a deliberate imitation meant to make listeners think it is you.

The key question is almost always the same: did someone use one of these to advertise, sell, or promote something, without your consent? That commercial purpose is what separates a right-of-publicity problem from ordinary, protected uses of your name or photo. You do not have to be a celebrity, either. Everyone in California has a right of publicity; celebrities simply tend to have more provable financial value attached to it.

Civil Code section 3344: the rule for living people

For people who are alive, the central statute is California Civil Code section 3344. It says that anyone who knowingly uses another person’s “name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness” for purposes of advertising, selling, or soliciting purchases of products or services, without that person’s prior consent, is liable to the injured person.

The damages provision is what gives the statute its teeth. A violator is liable for the greater of $750 in statutory damages or the person’s actual damages, plus any profits from the unauthorized use that are attributable to it and not already taken into account in computing actual damages. In other words, even if you cannot put a precise dollar figure on the harm, the floor is $750. The statute also allows punitive damages, and it lets the prevailing party recover attorney’s fees and costs, a feature that makes these claims practical to pursue.

Section 3344 includes important limits built right into the text. It does not apply to use of a name or likeness in connection with news, public affairs, sports broadcasts, or political campaigns. There is also a safe harbor for the medium that ran the material, owners and employees of a publication or broadcaster generally are not liable unless they knew the use was unauthorized. And consent is a complete answer: if you signed a release, the use is permitted within whatever that release covers.

Section 3344.1: protecting people who have died

What happens to these rights after death? In many states the right of publicity dies with the person. California is different. Civil Code section 3344.1 creates a post-mortem right of publicity that survives for 70 years after a personality’s death.

During those 70 years, the deceased person’s heirs, estate, or whoever owns the rights controls the commercial use of their name, voice, signature, photograph, and likeness. Using a deceased celebrity’s image on merchandise or in an ad without permission from the rights holder can trigger liability much like section 3344 does for the living. This is why the estates of long-departed entertainers and athletes can still license, or block, the use of their identities decades later. Like the living-person statute, section 3344.1 carves out genuine news, public affairs, and certain creative and literary works.

The new AI “digital replica” laws (AB 1836 and AB 2602)

Artificial intelligence made it cheap and easy to clone a person’s face or voice, and California responded with two laws that took effect January 1, 2025.

AB 1836 amended section 3344.1 to target digital replicas of deceased performers. It creates liability for producing, distributing, or making available an AI-generated digital replica of a deceased personality’s voice or likeness in an expressive audiovisual work or sound recording without prior consent from the estate or rights holder. The penalty is the greater of $10,000 or the actual damages suffered by the rights holder. This closed a gap that the deepfake era exposed: recreating a dead actor’s performance with AI now squarely requires permission.

AB 2602 addresses the living, and it works through contracts rather than after-the-fact lawsuits. It makes a provision in a personal-services contract unenforceable if it allows the creation and use of a digital replica of an individual’s voice or likeness in place of work they would otherwise have performed in person, unless the contract describes that use with reasonable specificity and the performer was professionally represented (by legal counsel or a union) in negotiating it. The goal is to stop performers from unknowingly signing away the right to be replaced by an AI version of themselves buried in boilerplate.

Together these laws show where the right of publicity is heading: a synthetic, AI-generated version of your identity is treated much like the real thing.

The First Amendment and newsworthiness limits

The right of publicity is powerful, but it is not unlimited, because the First Amendment protects speech. Not every use of your name or image is something you can stop.

Genuinely newsworthy uses are protected. A newspaper photo of you at a public event, a documentary that mentions you, a biography, or commentary about a public issue are generally not violations, even without your consent, because they are speech and information rather than advertising. California’s statutes themselves exempt news and public affairs for this reason.

Courts also protect transformative creative works. When an artist or writer adds enough of their own expression that the result is more than a literal reproduction of your likeness used to sell goods, the First Amendment can outweigh the right of publicity. The dividing line is roughly this: using your identity to comment, report, create, or critique tends to be protected, while using it as a commercial endorsement or to move product tends not to be. The closer a use sits to pure advertising, the weaker the free-speech defense.

These are fact-specific judgment calls, and reasonable people, and judges, sometimes disagree about which side of the line a particular use falls on.

What to do if your likeness was used without consent

If you discover your name, photo, or voice being used to sell something without your permission, a measured approach usually serves you best:

1. Document everything. Save screenshots, photos, URLs, dates, and copies of the ad or product. Note where it appeared and how long it ran. Evidence has a way of disappearing once you complain.
2. Figure out the context. Is this advertising or merchandise (likely covered), or is it news, commentary, or a creative work (often protected)? The answer shapes everything that follows.
3. Consider a takedown or demand letter. Many disputes end when a clear request to stop, sometimes with a request for compensation, reaches the right person. Section 3344 even contemplates fast injunctive relief in appropriate cases.
4. Preserve the timeline. Right-of-publicity and related claims are subject to deadlines (statutes of limitations). Waiting too long can cost you the claim entirely.
5. Talk to a lawyer. Because remedies can include statutory damages, profits, and attorney’s fees, and because the free-speech analysis is nuanced, this is a good area to get tailored advice from an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

For the closely related question of how athletes and creators license their identity, see our guide on NIL rights in California, and browse more on this subject at our publicity topic hub.

The bottom line

In California, your face, name, and voice are yours, and a company generally needs your permission before using them to advertise or sell. Civil Code section 3344 backs that up for living people with a $750 statutory floor, profits, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees; section 3344.1 extends protection for 70 years after death; and the 2025 AI laws AB 1836 and AB 2602 bring digital replicas under the same umbrella. The major exception is genuine news, commentary, and other protected speech. If your likeness shows up where it should not, document it early and get advice tailored to your situation.

This article is general educational information about California and U.S. law, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. The right of publicity is fact-specific and changes over time. For advice about your situation, consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.