On The Image Of The Right

The right of publicity arises from its use in the merchandization. The right of publicity in enacted laws has attracted so much attention in America for a long time, and it is stipulated in lots of statues. However, the right of publicity is a should-be right in China. The concept of the right of publicity is put forward based on the diversification of the forms of publicity merchandization and infringement in the daily life and the defects of the current legal system. While protecting the merchandised real person's image, both the present personality right system and property right system go too far away to be help. Combining the latest cases from the international perspective and drawing lessons from scholars' existing research achievements home and abroad, this author takes the right of publicity of real person as the research object to prove the justification of the right of publicity. This paper attempts to creat a new kind of right, namely the right of publicity, to promote the legal protection of the real person's image interests.The paper is divided into six parts.In part one, the author investigates the historical evolution of right of publicity in America. Firstly, the paper points out that right of publicity originated from the right of privacy and it was the product of the right of privacy that couldn't meet the demands of the progress of the society. Later, right of publicity has maken a great development since it was expatiated by Frank.J. in 1953.In part two, it makes comparison among different legal protection modes of right of publicity. There are three modes to protect publicity: passing-off, appropriation of personality and right of publicity. The author prefers to use the right of publicity.In part three, it demonstrates the justification of the right of publicity. In order to found a new type of right, scholars home and abroad should demonstrate the justification of the right of publicity. Instrumentalism is a good choice.In part four, it explains the nature and limitations of right of publicity. Right of publicity is a kind of intellectual property, but its enforcement should be limited to a certain degree too. This paper demonstrates the restrictions on right of publicity from three aspects; ie, freedom of expression and news, public order and good habits and exhaustion of the right.In part five and part six, the author talks about the creation of right of publicity in the framework of the legal system of China. After the analysis on its relationship with the relevant legal rights which has defects in protecting the image, this paper discusses the legal relationship, the term of protection and the legal protection against the infringement.