Elvis Presley Foundation v. Crowell: Publicity Survives Death in Tennessee

The Tennessee Court of Appeals held the right of publicity is descendible common-law property, making Tennessee the epicenter of post-mortem rights.

By Lidiia Levitska  ·  July 11, 2026
A vintage microphone on a stand under a spotlight on a dark stage
Elvis Presley's commercial identity outlived him, and Tennessee held it passed to his estate as property. Shutterstock
Educational content, not legal advice. This article explains general legal concepts. It does not create an attorney–client relationship. For your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney.

In State ex rel. Elvis Presley International Memorial Foundation v. Crowell, 733 S.W.2d 89 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1987), decided April 3, 1987, the Court of Appeals of Tennessee held that the right of publicity is a descendible property right under Tennessee common law. Elvis Presley’s commercial identity, in other words, did not die with him; it survived and passed to his estate. The case arose from a dispute between two nonprofit organizations, one formed by fans and the other associated with the Presley estate, over the right to use the Presley name in their corporate identities. Judge William Koch, writing for the court, reasoned that the right of publicity is a species of intangible personal property comparable to a corporate name, a trade name, and the goodwill of a business, and that treating it as extinguished at death would unjustly enrich those who exploit a celebrity’s earned fame.

The decision made Tennessee the epicenter of post-mortem publicity rights. It answered, as a matter of state law, the question the Sixth Circuit had earlier resolved the other way in Memphis Development Foundation v. Factors Etc., Inc., and it became the common-law ancestor of Tennessee’s modern statutory protections, including the 2024 ELVIS Act.

At a glance

  • Case: State ex rel. Elvis Presley International Memorial Foundation v. Crowell, 733 S.W.2d 89 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1987).
  • Decided: April 3, 1987 by the Court of Appeals of Tennessee, Middle Section, opinion by Judge William Koch; descendibility recognized as a matter of law, summary judgment vacated and remanded on a laches question.
  • Holding: The right of publicity is a descendible intangible property right under Tennessee common law that survives death and passes to the estate.
  • Significance: The decision that established Tennessee’s common-law post-mortem right, rejecting the Sixth Circuit’s contrary Erie prediction.

The doctrinal frame: is publicity property that can descend?

By the mid-1980s courts agreed that living people have a right of publicity, a protectable interest in the commercial value of their identity. They divided sharply on whether that right survives death. If the right is conceived as a personal, dignitary interest akin to privacy, it plausibly dies with the person, because privacy protects feelings that end at death. If instead the right is conceived as property, it should behave like other property: it can be owned, licensed, assigned, and inherited. The descendibility question thus turned on characterization.

The stakes were enormous for figures like Elvis Presley, whose name and image generated continuing commercial value long after 1977. Estates and licensees needed to know whether they held an inheritable asset or whether the death of the celebrity threw the identity open to anyone. Tennessee, home to Graceland and to a thriving Presley licensing enterprise, was the natural forum in which the issue would be decided.

The Memphis Development detour

Before Crowell, the leading word on Tennessee law had come from a federal court. In Memphis Development Foundation v. Factors Etc., Inc., 616 F.2d 956 (6th Cir. 1980), the Sixth Circuit, exercising diversity jurisdiction and predicting Tennessee law under Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, held that Elvis’s right of publicity did not survive his death. The court reasoned that the opportunity to exploit fame after death should pass into the public domain rather than to the estate, framing fame as something that, at death, becomes available to society at large. On that view, no one held an exclusive post-mortem right in Presley’s identity.

That federal prediction created a cloud over the estate’s licensing program. But an Erie guess about state law is only a prediction. It binds federal courts until the state’s own courts speak, and it does not bind the state courts themselves. Crowell gave the Tennessee judiciary its chance to speak.

The holding: a descendible property right

The Court of Appeals rejected Memphis Development’s prediction as an incorrect construction of Tennessee law. It held that the right of publicity is a form of intangible personal property, comparable to the categories Tennessee courts had already treated that way, a person’s business, a corporate name, a trade name, and the goodwill of a business, and that like other property it is descendible and survives the death of its owner. The court grounded the result in property principles rather than the public-domain theory the Sixth Circuit had embraced. It emphasized preventing the unjust enrichment of strangers who would profit from a celebrity’s laboriously built fame, honoring the celebrity’s ability to dispose of the asset, achieving parity with other inheritable investments, and protecting existing licensing arrangements and the public against fraudulent endorsements.

Because it was interpreting its own state’s common law, the Tennessee court was free to disregard the federal prediction, and it did. The right, it held, passes to the estate and can be enforced by those who hold it. On the specific record, the court recognized descendibility as a matter of law but vacated the trial court’s summary judgment and remanded because a disputed factual question on a laches defense remained. The enduring principle, however, is the descendibility holding.

Statute and successors: from the PRPA to the ELVIS Act

Crowell’s common-law holding did not stand alone. Tennessee had already enacted the Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984, codified at Tennessee Code Annotated section 47-25-1101 and following, which created a statutory descendible right of publicity. Notably, the Crowell court grounded its decision in common-law property principles independent of the statute rather than resting on the PRPA. The result was a two-track regime: a statutory post-mortem right and a coexisting common-law one, each reinforcing the other.

That foundation proved durable and adaptable. In 2024 Tennessee enacted the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act, known as the ELVIS Act, which amended the same chapter and renamed it, so that section 47-25-1101 no longer carries the 1984 short title, and expressly covered a person’s voice, a response to artificial-intelligence voice cloning and deepfakes, and extended liability to those who distribute or make available unauthorized digital replicas. The ELVIS Act’s remedies are declared cumulative and in addition to others provided by law, preserving the common-law right that Crowell recognized. Tennessee’s modern status as a leader in identity protection traces directly to the property characterization the court adopted in 1987.

Open questions

  • How long should a descendible right last? Crowell established survival but did not fix a durational limit, a question later addressed by statute and still debated across jurisdictions.
  • How do state common-law rights interact across borders? Because publicity law is state law, the descendible Tennessee right raises choice-of-law questions when an estate’s licensing spans states that treat post-mortem rights differently.
  • What is the boundary with expression? By resolving descendibility, the court did not map how a surviving right yields to First Amendment interests in biographies, films, and commentary about a deceased celebrity.
  • How will digital replicas be measured? The ELVIS Act extends the right to voice and digital likeness, but the standards for identifying and proving an unauthorized synthetic replica remain to be developed.

Implications for creators and businesses

  • Post-mortem identity is an inheritable asset in property states. Estates in Tennessee and similar jurisdictions hold a descendible right that can be licensed and enforced, and it should be treated as property in estate planning and valuation.
  • Federal predictions are not the last word. A state court can and did reject a Sixth Circuit Erie guess, so parties should track state-court developments rather than assuming a federal prediction settles state law.
  • Two-track protection strengthens estates. Where a common-law right coexists with a statute, an estate may invoke both, and the cumulative-remedies design of modern statutes like the ELVIS Act preserves that option.
  • Plan for AI and voice. The expansion to voice and digital replicas means licensees and platforms must account for synthetic uses of a deceased person’s identity, not only traditional images and names.

Frequently asked questions

What did Elvis Presley Foundation v. Crowell decide? The Tennessee Court of Appeals held that the right of publicity is a descendible property right under Tennessee common law, so it survives a person’s death and passes to the estate or heirs rather than expiring at death. The court treated the right as a species of intangible personal property comparable to a corporate name, a trade name, and the goodwill of a business, and it declined to follow a federal decision that had predicted Tennessee law recognized no such surviving right.

How does Crowell relate to Memphis Development v. Factors? The Sixth Circuit had held in Memphis Development Foundation v. Factors Etc., Inc. that under its prediction of Tennessee law, Elvis’s right of publicity ended at death and passed into the public domain. In Crowell, the Tennessee Court of Appeals rejected that prediction as an incorrect construction of state law. As a state court interpreting its own common law, it was not bound by the federal court’s Erie guess and recognized a descendible right.

Is the Crowell holding still important today? Yes. It established a common-law post-mortem right of publicity in Tennessee that coexists with the statutory scheme first enacted as the Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984, giving two-track protection. That foundation helped make Tennessee the center of post-mortem publicity law and set the stage for the 2024 ELVIS Act, which renamed that statute and expanded protection to a person’s voice in response to AI voice cloning.

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Lidiia Levitska
About the Author

Lidiia Levitska

International Intellectual Property Attorney

Lidiia Levitska focuses on intellectual property dispute resolution, policy, and advisory work across international institutions and government bodies. From 2021 to 2025 she served at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), managing arbitration cases and overseeing compliance with the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), and earlier led IP policy research as a Senior Policy Officer at the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. She holds an LL.M. in International Intellectual Property Law from Chicago-Kent College of Law and an M.A. in Information Technology Law from the University of Tartu, and was admitted to the Ukrainian Bar in 2019.

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