Sentence examples for publicity laws from inspiring English sources

Lawyers who specialize in celebrity-related matters said neither federal copyright law nor the patchwork of state-based "right of publicity" laws offer recourse to heirs or estates displeased with assertions published in a memoir.

The California law that Noriega invoked belongs to a class of "right of publicity" laws — recognized in about half of the U.S. states, according to Cornell University's Legal Information Institute — that prevent the unauthorized commercial use of aspects of an individual's identity.

Publicity laws, on the other hand, are property rights protecting an individual's ability to commercially make use of that person's name or likeness.

State right of publicity laws include minimum or statutory penalties for unauthorized use of a name or likeness -- California's is $750, while Indiana's is $1,000, Washington's is $1,500 and Texas' is $2,500 -- as well as reasonable lawyer's fees and possible punitive damages.

Right of publicity statutes were first adopted in the 1950s as an outgrowth of privacy laws, and currently 35 states have publicity laws (11 other states have case law on publicity but no statutes, while the remaining four states have no statutes or common law).

N45 Melville B. Nimmer, "The Right of Publicity," Law and Contemporary Problems 19 (1954), 203, 216.

It was not Mr. Velasquez's first intemperate act of seeking publicity, law enforcement officials said: On Feb. 22, he jumped the metal barriers outside the "Today" show studios at Rockefeller Center and tried to approach the show's hosts.

A story that transfixed millions of television viewers last week — about a child aboard a spaceshiplike balloon as it floated uncontrollably across the Colorado landscape — was concocted by the boy's parents to gain publicity, law enforcement officials said Sunday.

The suit was predicated on right of publicity law, our right to control how our names and likenesses are used to endorse products.

After last week's story, some lawyers brought up the "right of publicity" law, a provision by which many states provide image protection for famous people or artists, as well as the Lanham Act, which covers the dilution of a band or artist's trademark through an unauthorized use.

In addition to possible trademark violations, Slayton, a Los Altos, Calif., resident who once coached at the high school where Lin played, is also in danger of infringing on California's "right to publicity" law.