Celebrity Protection

Protection of Celebrity/ Personality Rights

Who is a celebrity?

A celebrity in the quotidian terms is a publicly recognized prominent figure, may it be the conventional movie stars, sports persons, directors, TV show anchors etc. But cases from the past, pushed the limits of the word to make up a broader term, engulfing all those associated with or falling under the ambit of the “direct commercial exploitation of identity” test, and such expanding of the term was given birth to by the case of Martin Luther King J Social Change v American Heritage Products Inc. Under the Indian Copyright Act, the term celebrity hasn’t been defined explicitly, the closest they’ve come is by referring to the definition of a performer as stated under Section

Since the publicity requires a lot of money and the money the celebrities make indirectly by being publicized aligns them with any other asset that would in-turn be subject to taxation and other commercial burdens, similar to any other intellectual property. In a world where fame is building in consonance with technology, we must take into consideration the path to take to preserve their market demand and give a sense of security of not being traded in for technological alternatives, such as theatre plays and video taped movies. We must also keep in mind the onuses that fame brings and how we must set up measures to prevent exploitation of less-tactful celebrities. Fourthly, the most common exploitation of their known public image, is their pictures which might be easily available and can be subject to ungoverned uses which might be objectionable to the said celebrity. And lastly, we ignore the inheritable nature of a spotlight, and being a celebrity can result in passing off a substantial amount of importance and focus on their immediate family/ social

An aspect which should be of greater prominence. The need for protection of celebrity and personality rights, I believe, primarily stems from a case of defamation. An individual whose life and career is built on publicity could not possibly be bothered immensely by unchecked spread of stardom unless it is of a negative nature that might tarnish or affect their publicly established image to their disadvantage. That is truly when they seek to enforce certain restrains on the spread of their personality and would desperately demand enforcing rights to protect their brand