Right of publicity

The right of publicity evolved out of the right of privacy in the United States, and is still often referred to as a "subset" of privacy rights. Generally, the right of publicity is the right of individuals, particularly celebrities, to control how others use their names, images and voice. In some jurisdictions, it only applies to commercial advertising. In others, it is broader, and applies to any commercial exploitation.

By the broadest definition, the right of publicity is the right of every individual to control any commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness, or some other identifying aspect of identity, limited (under U.S. law) by the First Amendment. The right of publicity can be referred to as publicity rights or even personality rights. The term "right of publicity" was coined by Judge Jerome Frank in the Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc..

The extent of recognition of this right in the United States is largely driven by statute or case law. Because the right of rublicity is governed by state (as opposed to federal) law, the degree of recognition of the right varies significantly from one state to another. To date, twenty-eight states have recognized the right, either in their case law, by statute or both.

A commonly-cited justification for this doctrine, from a policy standpoint, is the notion of natural rights and the idea that every individual should have a right to control how, if at all, his or her "persona" is commercialized by third parties. Usually, the motivation to engage in such commercialization is to help propel sales or visibility for a product or service, which usually amounts to some form of commercial speech (which in turn receives the lowest level of judicial protection). Many commentators consider the right of publicity to be a property right, as opposed to a personal right.