Re: Rights in real characters

On 8/4/97, Lolly Gasaway <laura_gasaway[_at_]unc.edu> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 30 Jul 1997, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> wrote:
> >
> > I just saw the movie Contact. It contains approximately 3 minutes
> > worth of speeches "by" Bill Clinton, which were actually created by
> > the movie producer from existing film clips of Clinton. Clinton
> > apparently did not approve this use, and was not paid.
> >
> > Is there any reason this wouldn't violate the right of publicity
> > in California?
>
> Wouldn't it depend on whether the speeches were ones
> made while Clinton was president? Thus, these speeches would be
> public domain.
>
>Lolly
>
>%%%%%

Even if speeches the president makes in the course of his official duties are in the public domain for copyright purposes, it still seems troubling to allow someone to reconstruct them using the same words in different order, and producing something that he did not say.

Several people have suggested that the California right of publicity does not apply to commercial uses that are not themselves advertisements for a product or service; assuming that is true, is there some other law that would apply?

Mark Lemley
Assistant Professor, University of Texas School of Law Of Counsel, Fish & Richardson, P.C.
mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu

For information on the Intellectual Property program at UT, see http://www.utexas.edu/law/acadaff/intelprop/

For information on the 1998 Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, see http://www.cfp.org Received on Tue Aug 05 1997 - 19:40:21 GMT