Image Rights and Wrongs

Who better to endorse a product than your favourite celebrity? David Beckham and adidas, Jamie Oliver and Sainsburys, Michael Winner and esure. But what’s to stop you or me from using a famous personality to endorse our product without their consent? Do celebrities control their image rights? What, in fact, are image rights?

An image right is the contractual right to use a person’s image. In the UK, our courts do not specifically recognise image rights.Traditionally, unhappy celebrities whose images had been exploited had to rely on the law of trade marks, copyright, the Trade Descriptions Act and the codes of practice of various trade and regulatory bodies (such as the Advertising Standards Authority) to control the use of their images.

A recent Court of Appeal case concerned the use of a doctored picture of racing driver Eddie Irvine. It decided that celebrities may now be able to protect their image rights against unauthorised exploitation through the law of passingoff. The UK is still some way behind the United States and many countries in Western Europe, but the decision is certainly a move in the direction of automatic protection for the rights of celebrities. For further information, please contact:

Alan Wetterhahn
Tel +44 (0)20 7440 7189
alan.wettherhahn@mishcon.co.uk