Re: "hot news" myth

Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
>
> If I recall correctly, last year there was a case, either in the
> California appellate courts or in the Ninth Circuit, in which the court
> found an actor's right of publicity was constitutionally preempted by
> the Copyright Act under the Supremacy Clause, to the extent that the
> actor could use that right to prevent distribution of the film itself.

Terry may be thinking of the case in which Betty Page (yes, she's still alive, and yes, she made a couple of movies) sought to prevent Something Weird Video from distributing videotapes of her (now public domain) films in jackets that depicted her image. The court held that the use of her image on the jacket was adjunct to the First Amendment right to distribute the work in the first place. I don't have the cite, but I'm pretty sure it's Page v. Something Weird.

Bob Cumbow
<cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> Received on Wed Jun 04 1997 - 22:41:55 GMT