The Commercial Appropriation of Personality

An analysis of the problem of commercial appropriation and the case for a remedy.

Huw Beverley-Smith (Author)

9780521800143, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 August 2002

404 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.76 kg

'The book is useful for any student of the law, for academics and judges, as well as for practitioners, including the generalist or even the specialist in another field. Its value lies beyond the insight it provides into this interesting, specialist, developing area of the law. It is a blueprint for the study of any area of common law that is being radically adapted and developed to meet new technological, economic and cultural changes.' Entertainment Law Review

Commercial exploitation of attributes of an individual's personality, such as name, voice and likeness, forms a mainstay of modern advertising and marketing. Such indicia also represent an important aspect of an individual's dignity which is often offended by unauthorized commercial appropriation. This volume provides a framework for analysing the disparate aspects of the problem of commercial appropriation of personality and traces, in detail, the discrete patterns of development in the major common law systems. It also considers whether a coherent justification for a remedy may be identified from a range of competing theories. The considerable variation in substantive legal protection reflects more fundamental differences in the law's responsiveness to commercial practices and different attitudes towards the proper scope and limits of intangible property rights.

Preface
Table of cases
Table of statutes
Part I. A Framework: 1. The problem of appropriation of personality
Part II. Economic Interests and the Law of Unfair Competition: 2. Introduction
3. Statutory and extra-legal remedies
4. Goodwill in personality: the tort of passing off in English and Australian law
5. Unfair competition and the doctrine of misappropriation
Part III. Dignitary Interests: 6. Introduction
7. Privacy and publicity in the United States
8. Privacy interests in English law
9. Interests in reputation
Part IV. Pervasive Problems: 10. Property in personality
11. Justifying a remedy for appropriation of personality
Part V. Conclusions: 12. The autonomy of appropriation of personality
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Intellectual property law [LNR], Comparative law [LAM]