Tag: Copyright

Ariana Grande Sues Forever 21 over Social Media Posts

Last week pop sensation Ariana Grande filed a lawsuit against Forever 21 for violation of both her statutory and common law right of publicity under California law, as well as for trademark infringement and false endorsement under the Lanham Act, and a copyright infringement claim. The claims arise out of the use of Grande's identity...

U. S. Copyright Office Considers a Federal Right of Publicity

In a report issued on April 23rd by the Register of Copyrights, the U.S. Copyright Office suggests that the lack of uniformity in state right of publicity laws may require Congressional intervention. The call for Congress to consider such a right arose in the course of a 107-page report issued by the office on the...

Who Owns You When You are Dead

The video has finally been posted from my July talk about postmortem rights of publicity for the USPTO’s National Trademark Exposition held at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. My talk is followed by comments by a former IRS examiner and tax attorney, and a panel discussion with basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and his business manager....

Warhol Foundation Claims Fair Use of Photographs of Dead Pop Star Prince

Oh, how the chickens come home to roost. In Comedy III v. Saderup, Inc., the California Supreme Court distinguished Andy Warhol’s celebrity portraits from those of Gary Saderup’s realistic portraits of The Three Stooges. Now this unconvincing and unpredictable distinction between Warhol’s celebrity portraits and those by other less famous, and more “realistic” artists is...

Darlene Love Sues Google for Using Her Voice

Darlene Love, an “icon of pop music’s golden age,” sued Google today for using her voice in advertising for mobile phones. Love is ranked 84 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Singers of all-time list, and is best known for He’s A Rebel, Alone on Christmas, and Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). She is also known...

More Musicians Object to Uses of their Music in Political Campaigns

Today, Rude Music filed a complaint in a federal district court in Illinois for the use of the song “Eye of the Tiger” by Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. The song by the band Survivor was the theme song in the movie Rocky III which topped the charts at the time.  Huckabee played the song at...

Bride and Groom Sue Wedding Photographer

A married couple sued their wedding photographer, not for bad photos, but for violating their rights of publicity by using their wedding photos in promotional brochures. The couple explicitly opted out of allowing the use of their photographs other than for their own personal use. The couple retained the copyright in their wedding photographs and...