Intellectual Property Law

More Background on Washington's Amended Right of Publicity Statute

By Michael Atkins

For those attending tomorrow’s discussion on Washington’s amended right of publicity statute, I thought I’d add some more background (STL post about the gathering here). In particular, here’s a cheat sheet on the amendment I cribbed from the the House Bill Report’s summary of the amendment:

”When Applicable
The provisions of the bill apply to all causes of action commenced on or after June 11, 1998, regardless of when the cause of action arose.

“The provisions of this bill apply to all individuals and personalities, living and deceased, regardless of place of domicile or place of domicile at time of death.

”Determination of Rights
Personality rights shall be deemed to have existed before June 11, 1998, for purposes of determining who is entitled to the rights recognized under this chapter.

”Transferability of Rights
An individual or personality, or any subsequent owner of that individual or personality’s personality rights, may freely transfer their interest through any permissible inter vivos or testamentary instrument, regardless of when the transferring instrument was entered or executed.

“Personality rights do not expire and are owned and enforceable by those designated in a testamentary instrument or by intestate succession upon the death of the person, regardless of whether the law of the deceased person’s domicile, residence, or citizenship, recognizes a similar or identical property right.

”Definitions
A definition for ‘deceased individual’ is added. A deceased individual is any individual, regardless of the individual’s place of domicile, residence, or citizenship at the time of death, who has died since 1988.

“The language used to define ‘deceased personality’ is modified to include the phrase, ‘regardless of the personality’s place of domicile, residence, or citizenship at the time of death or otherwise.’”

Full post as published by Seattle Trademark Lawyer on April 30, 2008 (boomark / email).