#Liability: Avoiding the Lanham Act and the Right of Publicity on Social Media
2015; University of Chicago Law School; Volume: 83; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1939-859X
Autores Tópico(s)Dispute Resolution and Class Actions
ResumoSuppose your company wants to engage young people through social media, building your brand among thousands of potential customers in an effective and relatively inexpensive manner. You learn that a photographer has snapped a picture of a popular celebrity leaving your store, shopping bags with your logo in hand. Excited by this opportunity to improve your brand, your company posts the photograph on social media. Three days later, you have a lawsuit on your hands. If this sounds far-fetched, think again. Lawsuits have proliferated in recent years as celebrities have claimed violations of their statutory and common-law rights when companies post pictures on social media. Plaintiffs ranging from Katherine Heigl to Humphrey Bogart’s estate have filed lawsuits against companies after the companies posted the celebrities’ pictures on social media.1 However, none of these suits has come to judgment, instead settling privately before trial,2 which provides little guidance to potential defendants, plaintiffs, and judges.
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