Description
Building on Campbell to Develop a New Tort of Publicity Rights in EnglandAbstract:
In Rihanna Fenty v. Arcadia (2015), drawing on the earlier House of Lords decision in Douglas v. Hello (2007), the Court of Appeal noted that “[t]here is in English law no ‘image right’ or ‘character right’ which allows a celebrity to control the use of his or her name or image.” This implies that, in England, any celebrity (or anyone else for that matter) seeking to control the use of their image must rely on other causes of action such as breach of confidence, misuse of private information, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, or passing off. However, in Irvine v. Talksport (2002), which was decided before Campbell, although the claimant was able to successfully rely on passing off to protect his image, Justice Laddie was willing to explore whether the Human Rights Act could be used to protect the claimant if the conclusion had been reached in that case that passing off had not developed sufficiently. This is similar to what the House of Lords did in Campbell by drawing on the Human Rights Act to develop a new tort of misuse of private information. In light of recent technological developments such as the (unauthorised) use of the images and identities of individuals in the context of AI and the limitations of the existing causes of action for the protection of image rights in England, this paper will explore whether English courts can use Campbell’s development of the tort of misuse of private information as a model to develop a new tort of publicity rights.
| Period | 19 Sept 2024 → 20 Sept 2024 |
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| Event type | Conference |
| Location | London, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |