Re: Rights in real characters

Bob Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> writes:
>
> I think of rights of publicity more as a trademark/unfair competition
> kind of claim than as a privacy tort.
>

While in modern practice I tend to agree with Bob, John Allison is surely correct that the right of publicity is descended from one of the four common-law privacy torts. See, among others, Prosser & Keeton on Torts (5th ed. 1984), in the chapter on privacy.

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

For a list of my publications, and how to find them, see http://www.law.utexas.edu/lemley/pubs.htm Received on Wed Aug 13 1997 - 15:20:47 GMT