Understanding Rights of Publicity: A Deeper Dive

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Understanding Rights of Publicity: A Deeper Dive

An intellectual property attorney. But I'm not just an attorney, I'm also an entrepreneur. One of the companies I co-founded is a shoe company. When we started the business over 15 years ago, my partner managed to get a number of well-known musicians and celebrities to purchase our shoes. In our mind, if only we could tell the world that our shoes were worn by this celebrity or that musician, we'd be able to push our brand over the tipping point. But we had a problem. Even if we had a photo of the celebrity wearing the shoes, we couldn't use that to promote the shoe company.

Why? Because the celebrities have a right to endorse products with their name and image, and they charge a large fee for doing so. If we chose to use those photos without permission, then the celebrities could have sued us. We call this body of law, right of publicity law. I'd like to show you the basics of right of publicity law. I'll give you an overview, and then talk about licenses and releases. We'll walk through defenses and exceptions, and discuss right of publicity law in comparison with other IP law, like trademark law.

I hope to save you from the pitfalls of violating rights of publicity, and hopefully diminish your risk, and prevent a lot of headaches down the road.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/understanding-rights-of-publicity-a-deeper-dive