-- In other words, I can put an unflattering picture of you
-- on my website or even in a local art museum, but I can't
-- make money selling a portrait I painted of you.
-- Originally, this law was designed to prevent people from,
-- for example, making a living selling pictures of Michael
-- Jordan. It has since been expanded to cover the "average"
person
Guess we disagree...
Taken literally, under your view you couldn't take a picture of people on a public street, and sell the picture -- let alone copies of it. Even if that's a correct way to read the statute, it would violate the 1st Amendment.
If someone can make a painting and display it, he can sell it. Note, there's a difference from selling the painting (the physical object) and selling reproductions of the painting.
The rules for Elginy are not the rules applicable to that "average" person that you refer to. Eliginy is easily a bona fide "public person" -- and there's a lot more privilege to celebrate him or mock him without his permission. Ditto Leona Helmsley. And the more distorted the pictures are (thereby making a comment) the more clear the purpose is to make a comment.
This "right of publicity business" had its origin in recent times originally in New York and California law, but it really has a much older origin. Even before Brandeis gave the "right to be let alone" the name privacy back in 1890, it was recognized that it was improper to use the picture of a baby without consent (of the parents, presumably) to sell a box of oatmeal. Perhaps that's been extended now to selling pictures of the baby itself -- but even if that's true and legal, it can't be used to squash ridicule of Eliginy, a public figure who may or may not deserve it.
Or summarized in 4 words: the price of fame.
or in one word: TUFF (as that term was popularly used in Bronx dialect circa 1965).
- Charles |
