To assist clients to get the right overall strategy to generate income and maintain reputation and popularity, our personality and image rights team works with the brand, merchandising, licensing and sponsorship and data protection team to establish an image strategy that works for the individual or organisation we are working for.
Valuable image rights need to be protected by contract
Current English law does not protect image rights in a stand alone way. Consequently, valuable rights will need to be protected using a combination of legal methods, as appropriate.
Typically, to maximise and protect personality and image rights, the following are possibilities :-
Licensing contracts – The rights granted will need to be carefully defined, especially given the significant number of channels and ways in which an image or personality can be exploited – for example, these may include, voice, initials, team or squad number, electronic, animated or computer-generated.
Passing off claims – For example, if an athlete discovered a company using his or her image on a range of perfumes, in order to pursue an action in passing off, they would need to demonstrate significant reputation or goodwill and loss as a consequence. It is worth considering also the position of businesses who may have paid significant sums to be associated with or endorsed by the celebrity or sports person.
Such a business may already have insisted on a clause in that lucrative contract that the celebrity will take action against any infringement, to protect it’s own position and investment.