Balough
August 11, 2017
(August 11, 2017) Facebook did not violate a country-rap singer’s right of publicity by allowing third parties to place ads on pages that contained critical comments about the singer. Country rap artist Mikel Knight, whose real name is Jason Cross, sued Facebook alleging six causes of action. Three of the causes of action were dismissed […]
Balough
February 21, 2014
Michael Jordan has scored again—this time at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals—but it’s no slam dunk. The appellate court found that a full-page spread by Jewel Food Stores, Inc., in a Sports Illustrated commemorative issue purporting to congratulate Jordan on being inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame was commercial speech, reversing […]
Balough
December 23, 2013
The use of a mother and her daughter’s images without their written permission on the cover of a media kit used to generate advertising revenue for a monthly publication violates the Illinois Right of Publicity Act, an Illinois appellate court found. McHenry County Living magazine originally took the photograph when it selected the mother’s garden as […]
Balough
December 14, 2013
The estate of the late singer-songwriter James Brown may be feeling so good right now. An Illinois appellate court agreed that a website that displays pictures of the singer for licensing may violate Brown’s right of publicity because the stock images can be purchased by private and commercial users, not only the media. In addition, […]
Balough
December 7, 2013
For those convicted of a crime, there is no privacy regardless of how long ago the crime was committed. The California Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit for invasion of privacy against Discovery Communications, Inc. brought after the production and broadcast in 2001 of a television show depicting the plaintiff as an accessory to a murder […]
