Reproduction of the original: The Right to Privacy by Samuel D. Warren, Louis D. Brandeis

Who controls how one’s identity is used by others? This legal question, centuries old, demands greater scrutiny in the Internet age. Jennifer Rothman uses the right of publicity—a little-known law, often wielded by celebrities—to answer that question, not just for the famous but for everyone. In challenging the conventional story of the right of publicity’s emergence, development, and justifications, Rothman shows how it transformed people into intellectual property, leading to a bizarre world in which you can lose ownership of your own identity. This shift and the right’s subsequent expansion undermine individual liberty and privacy, restrict free speech, and suppress artistic works. The Right of Publicity traces the right’s origins back to the emergence of the right of privacy in the late 1800s. The central impetus for the adoption of privacy laws was to protect people from “wrongful publicity.” This privacy-based protection was not limited to anonymous private citizens but applied to famous actors, athletes, and politicians. Beginning in the 1950s, the right transformed into a fully transferable intellectual property right, generating a host of legal disputes, from control of dead celebrities like Prince, to the use of student athletes’ images by the NCAA, to lawsuits by users of Facebook and victims of revenge porn. The right of publicity has lost its way. Rothman proposes returning the right to its origins and in the process reclaiming privacy for a public world.

This looseleaf treatise examines the inherent rights of individuals to control the commercial use of their identities. Trademarks, copyrights, false advertising, defamation, infliction of mental distress, interference with contract, licenses, and other aspects of publicity and privacy are discussed in the work.

Can the police strip-search a woman who has been arrested for a minor traffic violation? Can a magazine publish an embarrassing photo of you without your permission? Does your boss have the right to read your email? Can a company monitor its employees' off-the-job lifestyles--and fire those who drink, smoke, or live with a partner of the same sex? Although the word privacy does not appear in the Constitution, most of us believe that we have an inalienable right to be left alone. Yet in arenas that range from the battlefield of abortion to the information highway, privacy is under siege. In this eye-opening and sometimes hair-raising book, Alderman and Kennedy survey hundreds of recent cases in which ordinary citizens have come up against the intrusions of government, businesses, the news media, and their own neighbors. At once shocking and instructive, up-to-date and rich in historical perspective, The Right to Private is an invaluable guide to one of the most charged issues of our time. "Anyone hoping to understand the sometimes precarious state of privacy in modern America should start by reading this book."--Washington Post Book World "Skillfully weaves together unfamiliar, dramatic case histories...a book with impressive breadth."--Time

"Privacy: The Lost Right is an authoritative overview of privacy in today's intrusive world. By analyzing the history and context of modern common law, tort, statutory and constitutional protections for the individual, Jon L. Mills exposes the complex web of laws and policies that fail to provide privacy protection. Identifying specific violations against privacy rights, such as identity theft, tabloid journalism, closed-circuit television, blogs, and Right to Die, he also provides a comprehensive assessment of privacy and legal remedies in the United States. Mills uses his experience as a former policy maker formulating Florida's constitutional privacy provisions and as an attorney in celebrity privacy cases to provide the leader with an understanding of the increasing intrusions in privacy rights, the possible harm, and available protections."--BOOK JACKET.