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Monday, December 26, 2011
Law - "Artists: Can You Be Sued for Including a Real Person in Your Painting?"
Daniel Grant, identified as "Arts writer," has this long article on the Huffington Post. A few quotes:
[T]he growing sense that one's likeness is a "property" that can be commercially exploited has led many artists to feel less secure in pursuing realistic figurative images. * * *Unlike a federal statute, which supercedes state laws, the right of publicity (and of privacy) is wholly determined by each state, and there is significant variation from one to the next. Some state publicity statutes make specific exceptions for artwork, while others do not. Indiana exempts artwork in its statute, but New York case law has specifically extended the law to protect the first amendment rights of artists, which includes multiples (print or sculpture editions) while Indiana's law only stipulates one-of-a-kind pieces. On the other hand, California allows the image to appear on a t-shirt or some more commercial medium, although in limited circumstances. California, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia allow publicity rights to be transferred.
A number of states hold that the right of publicity ends with the subject's death, while almost all the states with publicity rights statutes permit the right to be inherited. Florida, for example, extended the right of publicity to 40 years following the individual's death, while Indiana and Oklahoma allow 100 years, and Tennessee crafted its law in 1984 to enable heirs, such as Elvis Presley's, to control the use of a name and a likeness indefinitely. In addition, Washington's and Indiana's statutes provide retroactive publicity rights protection of 50 and 100 years, respectively. State right of publicity laws include minimum or statutory penalties for unauthorized use of a name or likeness -- California's is $750, while Indiana's is $1,000, Washington's is $1,500 and Texas' is $2,500 -- as well as reasonable lawyer's fees and possible punitive damages.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 26, 2011 10:13 AM
Posted to General Law Related