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Dinwoodie, Graeme; Richardson, Megan --- "Publicity right, personality right, or just confusion?" [2017] ELECD 310; in Richardson, Megan; Ricketson, Sam (eds), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 425

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment

Editor(s): Richardson, Megan; Ricketson, Sam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784710781

Section: Chapter 16

Section Title: Publicity right, personality right, or just confusion?

Author(s): Dinwoodie, Graeme; Richardson, Megan

Number of pages: 21

Abstract/Description:

Mark Twain said that celebrity is what many people long for ‘more than for any other thing’. Yet there is also something vulnerable (as well as powerful) about a celebrity’s relationship with the public, which may be attributed to the contingent and transient character of the fame that modern celebrities tend to enjoy: the fact that ‘stars move in and out of favour’. Or as Piers Morgan put it simply, ‘one day you’re the cock of the walk: the next you’re a feather duster’. The essential fragility of fame can be exposed when celebrities find themselves subjected to unwanted public discussions of their private lives in the media (increasingly on a global basis online), and when their personal attributes are referenced without their consent in certain kinds of advertising and trade. To date, there is little consensus as to whether and how the law should respond when this occurs. Indeed, a number of commentators have characterized such intrusions on a celebrity’s personal dignity or autonomy as simply falling among the minor inconveniences of being a celebrity, insufficient to warrant legal protection given important social values such as freedom of speech and cultural pluralism. As noted in this chapter, the ambiguities are reflected in the uncertain shifting legal lines drawn around celebrity protection, especially in common law jurisdictions which, unlike many civil law jurisdictions, do not adhere to the idea of a full-scale personality right. The legal line-drawing in this area in these (common law) jurisdictions comes down primarily to the courts.