Julia Haye

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In 1968, Andy Warhol exhibited his first international retrospective at the Moderna Museet gallery in Stockholm. The exhibition catalogue contained the well-known phrase: “In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” Warhol repeated that phrase in 1979, stating that his “prediction from the sixties finally came true.” Now that we live in a world in which a video clip can go viral within hours, Warhol’s “prediction” seems more like an understatement — though if Warhol could see the “Numa Numa” guy for himself, he might not actually take much pride in his predictive powers.

Unfortunately — or, for those who view the Internet as an all-you-can-eat buffet to their insatiable appetite for attention, fortunately — more and more people are finding themselves thrust into surprising (and often unwanted) Internet stardom. So, what can you do if you become an unwilling Internet meme? (That is, besides closing your eyes and waiting for your 15 minutes to expire.) Well, it depends. Continue reading the full story . . . »

Dan Nabel

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As anyone who plays video games these days knows, computer-generated representations of real people have become both increasingly commonplace and incredibly realistic. So much so, that a new area of litigation has emerged: right of publicity lawsuits for the unauthorized use of a person’s likeness in a video game.

Right of Publicity Law

The basic idea of the right of publicity is quite simple. Under the laws of most states, a person has the right to control the commercial use of his or her identity or “likeness.” This right encompasses all of a person’s distinctive characteristics, e.g., the sound of a chanteuse’s voice; a basketball star’s former name; or even a race car driver’s distinctive racing car. Traditionally, right of publicity lawsuits have been filed over unauthorized uses of a celebrity’s likeness in advertisements (usually television commercials): Continue reading the full story . . . »

Jesse Saivar

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Q: I have recently optioned the autobiography of a person that I’d like to use as the subject for a feature film. In the last quarter of the book, a historical figure whom my subject served with in the military is featured in a number of scenes. Do I have to get clearance from the person’s estate before using them in the script? I assume the author got permission to use her story in his book, but does this permission extend to a film?

A: Judging by your question, I think I can assume that your historical figure is truly historic (i.e., he or she is history). Either that or you are pondering getting clearance from someone’s large house. I’ll assume the former. The fact that your person of interest is an historic figure and is no longer with us makes your question much easier to answer. Continue reading the full story . . . »

Elisabeth Moriarty

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Science-fiction author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke famously formulated three laws of prediction, the first of which posits: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” The same could be said of copyright law.

If you believe categorically that something is not copyrightable, you may well be wrong. You have a much better shot at being right if you conclude that this something possibly could be copyrightable, because the answer to the question “Is it subject to copyright protection?” is, more often than not, “It depends.” In other words, the law of copyright is weird, wacky and wonderful. Continue reading the full story . . . »