{"id":487,"date":"2016-07-02T21:33:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-02T21:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=487"},"modified":"2023-12-15T22:00:45","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T22:00:45","slug":"publicity-rights-limited-by-free-speech-guarantees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2016\/07\/02\/publicity-rights-limited-by-free-speech-guarantees\/","title":{"rendered":"Publicity rights limited by free speech guarantees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the well-known case of&nbsp;<em>Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Social Change v. American Heritage Products<\/em>,&nbsp;296 S.E.2d 697 (Ga. 1982),&nbsp;plaintiffs Coretta Scott King, administrator of Dr. King\u2019s estate and Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Social Change, and Motown Records, an assignee of the rights to several of Dr. King\u2019s recorded speeches, sued defendants to stop them from manufacturing and selling plastic busts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Georgia Supreme Court recognized a \u201ccelebrity\u2019s right to the exclusive use of his or her name and likeness\u201d and rejected defendant\u2019s contention that the First Amendment protected the right to manufacture and sell busts of public figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In contrast, the Sixth Circuit held in\u00a0<em>ETW Corp. v. Jireh Publishing, Inc.,\u00a0<\/em>332 F.3d 915 (6th Cir. 2003),<em>\u00a0t<\/em>hat the First Amendment protected an artist\u2019s right to sell prints of his painting that depicted Tiger Woods\u2019s victory at the 1997 Masters Tournament. In a similar ruling, the Eleventh Circuit agreed held in\u00a0<em>Rosa &amp; Raymond Parks Inst. for Self Dev. v. Target Corp.,\u00a0812 F.3d 824 (11th Cir. 2016),,\u00a0<\/em>that Michigan publicity rights law could not stop a store from selling books, movies, and plaque honoring civil rights leader Rosa Parks because those activities were protected by the first amendment\u2019s guarantee of freedom of speech.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/free-speech\/\" rel=\"tag\">Free Speech<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/intellectual-property\/\" rel=\"tag\">Intellectual Property<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the well-known case of&nbsp;Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Social Change v. American Heritage Products,&nbsp;296 S.E.2d 697 (Ga. 1982),&nbsp;plaintiffs Coretta Scott King, administrator of Dr. King\u2019s estate and Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Social Change, and Motown Records, an assignee of the rights to several of Dr. King\u2019s recorded speeches, sued defendants to stop them from manufacturing and selling plastic busts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Georgia Supreme Court recognized a \u201ccelebrity\u2019s right to the exclusive use of his or her name and likeness\u201d and rejected defendant\u2019s contention that the First Amendment protected the right to manufacture and sell busts of public figures. In contrast, the Sixth Circuit held in\u00a0ETW Corp. v. Jireh Publishing, Inc.,\u00a0332 F.3d 915 (6th Cir. 2003),\u00a0that the First Amendment protected an artist\u2019s right to sell prints of his painting that depicted Tiger Woods\u2019s victory at the 1997 Masters Tournament. In a similar &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2016\/07\/02\/publicity-rights-limited-by-free-speech-guarantees\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Publicity rights limited by free speech guarantees<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech","category-intellectual-property"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}