Intellectual Property Blog

Life, Liberty, Happiness, and…Personality? What to Know about Your Publicity Rights

Believe it or not, there are no federal statutes or case laws protecting your exclusive right to the use of your name, image, and likeness (NIL) or any other defining factor of your identity, such as your voice or signature. Rights of publicity vary state by state, and as a result, these rights are complicated and little-understood. Recently, publicity rights (sometimes called “personality rights”) have been in the news—first for college athletes gaining the ability to profit from their NIL through a recent Supreme Court decision, then for the use of AI-generated clips of the voice of the late Anthony Bourdain in the documentary film Roadrunner. These two very different instances illustrate two sides of the multi-faceted issue of rights of publicity. More >