The T- Shirt Found No Love – Rihanna Wins in Court - Mark A. Fischer

International singing star Rihanna Robyn Rihanna Fenty to the court won a lawsuit in July in England against the Top Shop stores over the manufacture and sale of an unauthorized TShirt bearing her image Merchandise such as Tshirts jackets buttons is a very big business so the respective rights of celebrities and merchants are important I frequently work on licenses and litigation in this area and know firsthand how valuable these rights are amp8211 and how seriously infringements are takenIn the United States celebrities routinely win such cases because the US recognizes a celebrity39s quotright of publicityquot that39s the right to control most commercial exploitations of a celebrity39s name likeness and biographical detailsSo a court victory in the US by a celebrity over unauthorized merchandise wouldn39t be newsworthy But in the United Kingdom there isn39t that kind of right of publicity Rather the UK protects against the quotpassing offquot of merchandise if for example it appears that the merchandise is being authorized or as they write the word in the UK quotauthorisedquot and endorsed by the celebrity The plaintiff needs to establish an element of deceit in other words Merely using the celebrity39s image without authorization isn39t enough to incur liability the way it could in the USIn the UK celebrities have a much more limited right to control use of their images on merchandise In other words this case is news And not just because it involves the alwaysinthenews RihannaThe court described Rihanna as quota world famous pop star She has a cool edgy image Through her companies she runs a very large merchandising and endorsement operationquotHigh Court Justice Birss wrote quotalthough I accept that a good number of purchasers will buy the tshirt without giving the question of authorisation any thought at all in my judgment a substantial portion of those considering the product will be induce to think it is a garment authorised by the artist The persons who do this will be the Rihanna fans They will recognize or think they recognize the particular image of Rihanna not simply as a picture of the artist but as a particular picture of her associated with a particular context the recent Talk That Talk album For those persons the idea that it is authorised will be part of what motivates them to buy the product I am quite satisfied that many fans of Rihanna regard her endorsement as important She is their style icon Many will buy a product because they think she has approved of it Others will wish to buy it because of the value of the perceived authorisation itself In both cases they will have been deceivedquotThe question existing is will the case establish new UK law It might embolden other celebrities and style icons to push courts to find liability Time will tell whether or not the case makes UK law more complicatedMark A Fischer is a partner at Duane Morris LLP based in Boston and New York City His law practice is focused on solving problems and making deals for innovative companies institutions and individuals Mr Fischeramp8217s clients are typically in the creative industries such as new media social networking music interactive entertainment information technology software television publishing and toys He may be contacted at mafischerduanemorriscomRead all Mark39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Mark A FischerCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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The T- Shirt Found No Love – Rihanna Wins in Court - Mark A. Fischer

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