Testimonial and likeness release form

If you publish someone's words, name, face or voice in your marketing, you want a record that they agreed to it. This page generates one, and explains the parts people usually get wrong.

What a release actually needs to cover

• Scope — which of name, likeness, photo, video, job title and employer may be published.
• Placement — where it may appear, including media that did not exist when they signed.
• Editing — whether you may shorten it, and the promise that shortening will not change the meaning.
• Term and withdrawal — how long it lasts and what happens when someone asks you to take it down.
• Compensation — whether anything was given, because that determines your disclosure obligations.

The disclosure rule people miss

In the US the FTC treats testimonials as endorsements. If there is a material connection between you and the endorser that a reader would not expect — you paid them, gave them the product free, employ them, or they are your relative — that connection has to be disclosed clearly and near the testimonial itself. A disclosure buried in a terms page does not count. This applies to employee testimonials on your own careers page too.

Withdrawal is not optional in practice

Even where a perpetual release is enforceable, insisting on displaying a testimonial from someone who has asked you to stop is a reputational problem far larger than the testimonial is worth. Build removal into your process and honour requests quickly. In the EU and UK, if the testimonial includes personal data, data protection law gives them routes to compel it anyway.

Common questions