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.

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

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.

Academics and practitioners are currently divided on the issues involved in permitting and regulating the commercial exploitation of publicity. 'Publicity' is the practice of using an individual's name, image and reputation to promote products or to provide media coverage, often in gossip magazines and the tabloid press. This book provides a theoretical and multi-jurisdictional review of the nature of publicity practice and its appropriate legal regulation. The book includes a detailed exploration of the justifications advanced in favour of publicity rights and those that are advanced against. Removing the analysis from any one jurisdiction the book examines current academic and judicial perspectives on publicity rights in a range of jurisdictions, drawing out similarities and differences, and revealing a picture of current thinking and practice which is intellectually incoherent. By then clearly defining the practice of publicity and examining justifications for and against, the author is able to bring the nature and shape of the right of publicity into much sharper focus. The book includes a careful consideration of possible limits to any right of publicity, the potential for assigning publicity rights or transferring them post mortem, and whether defences can be offered. The author concludes by arguing for a publicity right which provides a degree of protection for the individual but which is significantly curtailed to recognise valid competing interests. This is a work which will be of interest to academics and practitioners working in the field of publicity, privacy and intellectual property.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this text provides media students with a clear understanding of how intellectual property laws shape and are shaped by the needs of the media industry.

Using a variety of print advertisements,this exciting and provocative study explores how the consumer is created in terms of sex, race and class. Essential reading for all those interested in issues of consumption, citizenship and gender.

Dealing with rights and developments at the margin of classic intellectual property, this fascinating book explores emerging types of regulations and how existing IP regimes inform and influence the judicial and legislative creation of 'substitute' IP rights. The editors have carefully structured the book to ensure that there is a thorough analysis of how commercial values arising at the margins of classic IP rights are regulated. As new regimes of regulations emerge, the question of how existing IP regimes inform and influence the judicial and legislative creation of 'substitute' intellectual property rights is explored. By doing this, the contributors interrogate the very boundaries that constitute what IP rights traditionally protect and cover. Should all investments in anything intangible and 'intellectual' - such as product shapes, personality, data and organization of an event - be protected as property? Should there be qualitative differences among the types of investments and achievements? These are just some of the interesting questions addressed in this important new book. Academics, policymakers, lawyers and many others concerned with IP rights, will benefit from the extensive and thoughtful discussion presented in this work. Contributors T. Aplin, S. Ericsson, J. Griffiths, A. Kur, N. Lee, S. Maniatis, A. Ohly, A. Quaedvlieg, G. Rinkerman, K. Schmitt, Y. Tamura, N. van der Laan, G. Westkamp