Private Law Theory

INTRODUCTION
The Copyright Office defines the right of publicity as an Intellectual Property (‘IP’) right addressing ‘[t]he use of individuals’ personas in commercial contexts, aiming to prevent others from profiting from unauthorized uses’. The Register of Copyrights report classifies two stages of publicity rights evolution. First, publicity rights as the tort of privacy, which Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis defined as ‘the right “to be let alone”’. Second, the development of publicity rights as the pecuniary protection of celebrities who did not seek to protect their privacy, but quite the contrary – to make the most of their names, as ruled in Haelan Laboratories, Inc v Topps Chewing Gum, Inc (‘Haelan Laboratories‘), and theoretically supported by Melville B Nimmer. The plaintiff in Haelan Laboratories made a contract, according to which he was entitled to the exclusive right to use the photographs of leading baseball players for a stated term plus an option for extension, to enhance his sales. The defendant induced one of the ballplayers to let him do the same …

Mira Moldawer, Publicity Rights Metamorphosis: From The Right to Evoke to the Ultimate Evoked Rights, 24 Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property 1 (2025).