The intellectual property rights of celebrities

Abstract

The article addresses the intellectual property rights of celebrities, since the use of the persona as an element of society's own creative action cannot be restrained without measure, particularly where there is a creative transformation that legitimises the use of the persona as raw material. As a certain American state precedent notes, one thing is the use of the celebrity's image as the centre of the work whose possible contamination is examined; another is to use it as starting matter for a new work. In the latter case, the obligations owed to culture do not admit of categorical opposition. It is always an adjustment between conflicting interests, in which the private interest can neither inexorably prevail nor be irremediably eliminated. This necessary balancing sometimes finds explicit constitutional expression, but does not depend on it. So it is because, although the persona is the result of a fabulation, and precisely for that reason acquires its power of seduction, the use of that fascination to associate itself with the sale of goods and services cannot be drawn into the plane of deception; fame may lend its connotation to the commercial operation, but it may never break the barrier of verisimilitude.