My illegal post about the image rights campaign

Here is the copy of an ad promoting the “STOP! Image Rights Violations” campaign that currently stares at me during my morning commute (emphasis added):

The names and likenesses of entertainment talent and athletes are important business property. They are shared property created through the tireless efforts of the talent and athletes and the business efforts of the production companies. The rights protecting this property against unauthorized use by others are called “publicity rights.” In Japan, there have been many court cases acknowledging the importance of these rights, but since there is no clear stipulation of these rights in the law, in reality there is no end to cases of infringement.

I don’t have a ton to say about this now, except (a) you could make the case that the absence of laws explicitly protecting consumers’ rights to reuse commercial material to express themselves leads to patently pathetic violations as I have noted before (here’s hoping the Fair Use initiative passes this year); and (b) interestingly, Johnny’s Entertainment does not appear to be a member of this industry association.

As usual, Wikipedia provides concise and interesting background reading on the topic!

2 thoughts on “My illegal post about the image rights campaign”

  1. I consulted with a lawyer once on these image issues, and basically, it’s a total gray area. The production companies can make your life hell though even if you are technically “correct.”

    Normal people on the other hand do not really have any “portrait rights.” They can only sue if they can claim some kind of damages as a result of being photographed.

    I think these campaigns would work a lot better if we had any sort of example of the “damage” people do to these companies by infringers. All I see is a bunch of production companies trying to have a monopoly on their stars’ existence. In other words, we only see what they want us to see not who the person “really is.”

  2. To be honest seeing this kind of thing makes me WANT to paste their images all over the net. This kind of shit just gets laughed at in many other countries, and rightfully so IMO. Won’t they ever learn from Barbara Streisand?

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