If I plan to create a visual or sculptural artwork using James Joyce’s image, should I seek Estate permission?
U.S. Courts have held that the “right to publicity” (a rather irregular body of state-based law that bars people from “appropriat[ing] the commercial value of a person’s identity by using without consent the person’s name, likeness, or other indicia of identity for purposes of trade”) may not prohibit movies, novels, plays, or songs that use people’s names or likeness. However, statuettes, prints, and T-shirts that reproduce a person’s likeness for a commercial purpose may be found by some state courts to violate the right to publicity. Some courts tend to look more permissively on “transformative” uses of a person’s likeness (e.g., works that creatively and expressively alter a likeness or use it as only one among many raw materials, rather than a single realistic or representational image or likeness). And in some states the likeness of a deceased person is more broadly usable than that of a living person. The basic rule of thumb: the more transformative and the less commercial the u
Related Questions
- If I plan to reproduce a photograph of James Joyce or a member of his family in my scholarly book or article, should I seek the Estate’s permission before doing so?
- As a performing artist or visual artist, how can I be considered to perform or be commissioned to create an artwork in Arts Councils programming?
- If I plan to create a visual or sculptural artwork using James Joyce’s image, should I seek Estate permission?
