While you may not recognize his name, there is no doubt that you know the voice. John Facenda became known as “The Voice of God” through his work as a narrator for NFL Films. John Facenda passed away in 1984, but his son, John Facenda Jr., is now entangled in a lawsuit to protect the use of his father’s voice.
Facenda’s son is headed to trial over the use of his father’s voice in an NFL Network program about EA’s Madden NFL football game. Though NFL Films holds the copyright to the voice clips, Facenda Jr. argues that the NFL Network program was a commercial and violates a clause in Facenda’s contract that forbids the use of his voice in product endorsement.
The NFL Network and NFL Films allege that the program was actually a documentary or, in the alternative, that federal law trumps state contract law and Facenda’s clip is protected under the First Amendment.
While it’s unclear whether the program was a commercial, documentary, or “documercial”, U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro stated, “I put it on last night, and I have to tell you I thought it was hawking a product.”
[via Davis Law Blog, USA Today]
