Price v Hal Roach Studios
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| United States |
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[edit] 1 Price v Hal Roach Studios, Inc.
Case Name: Price v Hal Roach Studios, Inc.
Key Words: Descendibility, assignment of right of publicity, proprietary right
Country: U.S.A.
Citation: 400 F. Supp. 836 (SDNY 1975)
Court: Federal District Court
Case N°: -
Importance: Confirmation of the assignable property of the publicity right.
Facts: Stan Laurel’s widow and Oliver Hardy’s widow were the sole beneficiaries of the actors’ estates and their licensees. They brought an action against Hal Roach Studios, which were the holders of the copyrights of many of the actors’ films and licensee, asking the court to establish whether one of the parties was entitled to control the specific value of both famous characters. It was not contested that the two characters represented a value of their own, independent from any specific movie.
[edit] 2 Decision and reasoning
In a clear-cut judgement, Stewart Jr J. decided for the widows.
[edit] 2.1 Haelan Laboratories approved
The case Haelan laboratories was followed. The judge first recalled that a distinction between privacy and publicity might cause some confusion and uncertainty. However, he concluded that such problems like confusion had to be set aside because the privacy-publicity dichotomy was now clearly establish.
[edit] 2.2 he scope of the right of publicity
The fact that a separation is clearly drawn between those two torts can then lead the way to discuss the specific properties of each of them and to add some to one or the other. That is exactly the approach that Stewart Jr J. adopted. Although he considered that the differences between the two rights were already known, he used them to justify a new difference as to the specific scope of the right of publicity.
He started from the known fact that the right of publicity has an economic aspect which one must always considers, “when determining the scope of the right of publicity …one must take into account the purely commercial nature of the protected right”. Because of this commercial nature, the right can be assigned. The question was therefore whether, if this right is transmissible by contract, it can also be the case upon death. “There appears to be no logical reason to terminate this right upon death of the person protected”.
[edit] 2.3 Publicity: a property right?
The second conclusion that can be drawn is that the right of publicity is close in its nature to a property right. By concluding that the New York common law right of publicity continued after the death of the individual, it can be considered as an inheritable item of property. Stewart Jr J. adopted that reasoning too: “it is for this reason presumably that this publicity right has been deemed a ‘property right’”.
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