Rights in artists’ personas have taken center stage in the age of artist branding. Name, voice, likeness and other elements of an artist’s identity are licensed for a variety of uses, such as concert merchandise, product endorsements, videogames and hologram tours. With this has come heated litigations over who controls these rights, from the personas of
Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley to cases involving The Roots and the estate of jazz legend Thelonious Monk. This SXSW CLE presentation examines significant court decisions on and key legal principles in artists’ personas, including which state’s right-of-publicity law may apply, the interplay of related federal claims artists may have for unauthorized uses of their personas and how the monetary value of persona rights is determined.

Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.