The Right of Publicity : Privacy Reimagined for a Public World

The Right Of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined For A Public World Provides The First Serious Scholarly Analysis Of An Increasingly Important Legal Claim--the Right Of Publicity. This Unwieldy Law, Often The Darling Of Celebrities, Protects Against The Use Of A Person's Identity Without Permission. Often Erroneously Thought To Have Been Created In The 1950s, The Law Has Expanded Into A New Type Of Intellectual Property Right That Limits Free Speech And Interferes With Authors' Use Of Copyrighted Works. Most Troublingly, The Right Of Publicity Now Threatens To Undermine The Very Rights Of The Individuals It Was Designed To Protect. By Revisiting The Real Story Of How The Right Of Publicity Came To Be What It Is Today, The Author Provides A Path Forward For Limiting The Right. The Book Tackles A Host Of Current Issues, From The Use Of Celebrities' Images On Merchandise And In Social Media, To Claims By Student-athletes That They Should Be Paid When Their Likenesses Appear In Videogames And Photographs, To The Objections Of Subscribers To The Use Of Their Names And Images In Sponsored Advertisements In Social Media, To Efforts To Get One's Image And Name Removed From Revenge Porn And Mugshot Websites, To The Taxation And Control Of Dead Celebrities' Lucrative Identities.-- Introduction -- Part I. The Big Bang: The Original Right Of Publicity -- From The Ashes Of Privacy -- A Star Is Born? -- Part Ii. The Inflationary Era: A Star Explodes -- A Star Expands -- Part Iii. Dark Matter: The (in)alienable Right Of Publicity -- The Black Hole Of The First Amendment -- A Collision Course With Copyright -- Epilogue: The Big Crunch. Jennifer E. Rothman. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Présentation de l'éditeur : "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." The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World provides the first serious scholarly analysis of an increasingly important legal claim--the right of publicity. This unwieldy law, often the darling of celebrities, protects against the use of a person's identity without permission. Often erroneously thought to have been created in the 1950s, the law has expanded into a new type of intellectual property right that limits free speech and interferes with authors' use of copyrighted works. Most troublingly, the right of publicity now threatens to undermine the very rights of the individuals it was designed to protect. By revisiting the real story of how the right of publicity came to be what it is today, the author provides a path forward for limiting the right. The book tackles a host of current issues, from the use of celebrities' images on merchandise and in social media, to claims by student-athletes that they should be paid when their likenesses appear in videogames and photographs, to the objections of subscribers to the use of their names and images in sponsored advertisements in social media, to efforts to get one's image and name removed from revenge porn and mugshot websites, to the taxation and control of dead celebrities' lucrative identities.-- Provided by publisher Contents Introduction PART I. The Big Bang 1. The Original “Right of Publicity” 2. From the Ashes of Privacy 3. A Star Is Born? PART II. The Inflationary Era 4. A Star Explodes 5. A Star Expands PART III. Dark Matter 6. The (In)alienable Right of Publicity 7. The Black Hole of the First Amendment 8. A Collision Course with Copyright Epilogue: The Big Crunch NOTES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INDEX From athletes to victims of revenge porn, people have been transformed into intellectual property. Who controls one’s identity? Jennifer Rothman uses the right of publicity—a little-known law—to answer this question. By tracing the right’s origins to privacy laws in the 1800s, she finds a way to reclaim privacy for a public world.