Focus (Forum & Focus)
Dec. 19, 2007
Preserving Publicity Rights
Focus Column - By Simon J. Frankel and Bryanne J. Schmitt - What difference does it make whether Marilyn Monroe was a resident of California or New York when she died? Millions of dollars' worth, if you happen to possess the rights to her image.
By Simon J. Frankel
and Bryanne J. Schmitt
In May, two federal district courts held that California's 1984 right-of-publicity statute for dead celebrities did not allow a celebrity who died in 1962 to pass any publicity rights by will to beneficiaries. Rather, any rights conferred posthumously by the statute passed to statutory heirs, regardless of the will's directives.
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