California Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Right of Publicity Case

The California Supreme Court hears arguments today in an interesting right of publicity case that pits California's statutory right of publicity - which prohibits the use of likenesses without consent -  against the statutory single publication rule, which limits damages to one instance.   In the past, the single publication rule has been applied to libel cases, so the defendant is only liable for the one offending statement even though thousands of copies of the book were published.  

Now, however, in Christoff v. Nestle, the court will consider whether the single publication rule applies to the photo of a male model that Nestle used for Taster's Choice labels (as well as advertisements, coupons) in 22 countries without his consent.   The Recorder has more on the story.

- SBS