Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: IP, kevin rudd, obama, Politics, right to publicity
After Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States late last year, naturally enough, one supposes, speculation and discussion turned to the significant task Obama’s security detail had ahead of them in keeping the “first black President” safe.
In a blog post at The Guardian, Daniel Nasaw writes about one aspect of protecting Obama that is considerably less life threatening than the sorts of things the secret service might be concerned with, but far more interesting to those curious about IP: unofficial ‘Obamabilia’ – the flags, mugs, t-shirts, advent calendars, mousepads, even g-strings that enterprising American businesspeople have flooded the market with to service the demand of a US public who can’t get enough of the next King Arthur to enter Camelot.
Georgetown University Law School Professor Rebecca Tushnet, who is quoted in the story, suggests that despite the fact that a right to publicity is protected in most of the United States, which would afford Obama the right to control what items feature his image and by whom they are made or sold, the political reality of public life means this is an area of that publicity law which is largely untested. Tushnet speculates that a tension exists between the right to publicity on the one hand and the right to free speech under the US Constitution’s first amendment, on the other.
In Australia, the Trade Practices Act would afford protection to politicians facing this problem, preventing unscrupulous traders from engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct, but again the political reality of taking action under that act might actually preclude it.
Still, it’s interesting to speculate on whether the market appeal of Kevin Rudd g-strings would be as strong as that for Barack Obama?
PS: Greetings to the secret service bot that will inevitably find this story…
Original story: Buy the Obama inauguration thong | World news | guardian.co.uk
