Article on California’s Right of Publicity Statute

Lydia B. Yerrick (Southwestern Law School) recently published an article entitled, Live! For One Life Only?: The Need to Amend California’s Post-Mortem Right of Publicity Statute to Better Protect the Dead and Their Heirs from Holographic Exploitation, 43 Sw. L. Rev. 349-370 (2013). Provided below is a portion of the article’s introduction:

If you could see any artist in concert, dead or alive, who would it be? Die-hard music fans have been asking one another this question for decades. Few people thought that their fantasy concert could ever become a reality through the creation of hyper-realistic, live performance “holograms.” Even fewer people paused to consider the myriad of intellectual property issues implicated by such a performance. This Comment seeks to explain why the heirs to a deceased artist’s right of publicity may not actually have the right to control holographic uses under California’s current post-mortem right of publicity statute and proposes legislative solutions to close these loopholes.