On The Right Of Publicity

The right of Publicity is such a right that the main civil can make benefit by control the business use of its own identified characteristic such as name portrait and image. It a kind of the property rights that exclude others from interfering in. The development of mass media and the advertising industry are the social background of the publicity right. The development of them make it possible to realize the commercial value of the image. In order to learn the new type of the right, the author investigates the historical evolution of right of Publicity in America. And introduce the development of the publicity right, which arose from privacy. In order to further understanding of the publicity right, the paper introduced other related concepts, e.g. the merchandising right, and the commercial right to personality. The paper make a comparative analysis between the concepts and the publicity right, and make it sure that the concept of the publicity right is the best choice for Chinese legal system. In order to build the basic theory system of the new type of right, the paper demonstrates the legitimacy of the existence of the right, by analyzing the philosophical foundation of the right and the social values of the right. Then, the paper analyzed the nature of the right, which is a kind of Intellectual property right. Then the paper focused on building the theory of the publicity right adapt to China, by discussing the object, subject, content, and restrictions of the publicity right. The paper do its best to build a perfect theory of the right. At last, the paper suggested that the legislation of the new type of right should be arranged prudently.