[Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

Mon Aug 28 18:14:24 UTC 2006

On 8/28/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Has anybody so much as investigated industry standards about the use of
> album covers or the publicity shots of celebrities?  The entertainment
> industry if infamous for protecting what it believes to be its
> copyrights.  Have there been any cases regarding this kind of material?
> What can we do to free this borderline material?
>
I don't know of any such study.  But if one is done it should look at
both sides.  Has anyone lost a case over it is one question.  But
another is whether there are companies in jurisdictions which don't
have fair use that are using publicity shots without permission in the
first place.

As a tangentially related case, the John Dillinger Museum in Hammond,
Indiana lost a lawsuit over the "right of publicity", "which restrict
the use of someone's image or name for commercial purposes".  It seems
John Dillinger's family doesn't want the museum portraying him as a
murderer.  http://www.artsjournal.com/artfulmanager/main/008254.php

Anthony