Re: Rights in real characters

From: Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 97 17:29:00 PDT

On Thu, 07 Aug 97, Robert Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu> wrote:
> >
> > ... parody is not a defense if there were a violation of the
> > right of publicity in the first place.
>
> Because parody is First Amendment protected comment, it can be a
> very good defense to a claim of RoP violation. It didn't work in
> White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., 971 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir.
> 1992), reh'g en banc denied, 989 F.2d 1512, cert. denied, 508 U.S.
> 951 (1993); but it definitely did in Major League Baseball Players
> Ass'n. v. Cardtoons, 95 F.3d 959 (10th Cir. 1996).

Thanks for the correction and the two cites. The Cardtoons case is later and distinguishes its facts from White's. In the White case there were ads showing a parodied Vanna White robot advertising Samsung products. In Cardtoons the parodies were in the products themselves, baseball trading cards. The Cardtoons court distinguished the two cases on that basis, but also disagreed with the conclusion of the majority in White.

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Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu>
UCLA School of Law '98
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/1206/

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Received on Sat Aug 09 1997 - 00:40:25 GMT