Image Rights Protection & Management

Current English law does not protect your image rights in a standalone way, making it necessary for brands, personalities and organisations to seek a combination of legal methods to maximise the value of their imagery.

Briffa are specialist IP lawyers with decades of experience in the field of image rights management. We act for many well-known organisations, personalities and sportspeople, helping them to get the best deals, maximise the value of their imagery and retain brand value.

Briffa’s team can provide a variety of cost-effective, reliable services to suit your requirements, including licensing contracts, passing off claims, trade mark protection services and enforcing copyright in specific images that you own. Our personality and image rights team will work directly with the brand, merchandising, licensing, sponsorship and data protection teams to establish an image strategy that works for you.

The internet has created many new celebrities and influencers with a sizeable personal brand, particularly on YouTube and Instagram. If you are one of these people it’s important to protect your brand at an early stage of development, especially with the viral nature of the web. Briffa’s personality and image rights team works with many new celebrities, influencers and personal brands to establish an overall image rights strategy and help them maintain their reputation and generate income as the brand grows over time.

To maximise the value of and protect your image rights, we will carefully define all licensing contracts. Our personality and image rights team will pay particular attention to the number of channels and ways in which your image or personality can be exploited — this may include voice, initials, team or squad numbers, or electronic, animated or computer-generated representations of a personal brand or celebrity.

It is vital to ensure that you have a clause in any lucrative image rights contract that states you will take action against infringement to protect your brand’s position and investment. If you discover a company using your image without permission, we will pursue an action in passing off, working to demonstrate a significant enough loss to justify the claiming of damages.

A registered trade mark prevents the unauthorised use of words, phrases and images that are the same as or similar to their trade marks. Briffa can help you trade mark specific brand assets and copyright specific images to prevent unauthorised use.