Celebrity sells. The right of publicity, broadly defined as the inherent right of every individual to control the commercial use of his or her identity, has been well-established in the United States (US) for over fifty years. It protects the associative value that one brings to products and services, and is invoked mainly by celebrities to prevent unauthorised commercial uses of their persona. / There is a wealth of legal literature in the US that discusses a broad range of issues from justifications for the right of publicity to its interaction with freedom of speech under the First Amendment. However, very few contributions have studied the connections between cultural practices and the right of publicity in depth. This dissertation draws on insights pertinent to aspects of right of publicity laws in its evaluation of how the cultural studies literature may contribute to doctrinal development. The usefulness of cultural studies in this inquiry rests in its examination of the roles and meanings of celebrities in contemporary society. / This thesis demonstrates how an appreciation of the production, circulation and consumption of the celebrity personality can be incorporated into an analytical framework. It argues that what we generally call ‘celebrity’ is a collective product of the celebrity individual, the audience and the cultural producers. Two exemplary insights are explored. The first insight on the definition of the contemporary celebrity based on well-knownness provides the impetus for the legal protection of the commercial value of identity. The second insight about the celebrity’s function as a cultural sign representing majoritarian ideals has important implications both for contemporary consumption and identity politics. It will be shown how these insights support the concepts of evocative identification, associative appropriation and political recoding, all contributing to a more nuanced understanding of three key elements of a typical publicity claim. As celebrities in other common law jurisdictions like the United Kingdom and Australia rely on the passing off action to seek redress for unauthorised commercial uses of their identity, the relevance of these concepts to passing off is also examined. / The findings indicate that insights from cultural studies on the celebrity phenomenon can support both an expansive interpretation of identification in a publicity claim and, at the same time, a more restrictive application of the requirement of commercial appropriation. The dissertation also demonstrates how treating ideological codings of the celebrity persona as political speech can influence the articulation of the First Amendment defence. In addition, these cultural insights have similar relevance to passing off laws, supporting a broad interpretation of goodwill and damage, and a standard of impressionistic association based on the notion of affective transfer as sufficient to constitute misleading conduct. / In conclusion, this dissertation establishes that, far from being merely a theoretical discipline concerned with semiotic codings and the politics of power and identity, cultural studies provides a pragmatic framework for judges, scholars and lawyers to further their understanding of the extra-legal issues relating to the laws protecting the commercial value of the celebrity personality.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:24:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcos Alberto Sant Anna Bitelli.pdf: 1865746 bytes, checksum: 3e81c50146c4e4ff4d762357c05f7f01 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-15 / The study aims to: (i) demonstrate that not all features of personality rights are confirmed effectively in the daily exercise of the right of publicity in the contemporary moment; (ii) evidence that the economic use is an inexorable reality that requires the definition of new contours of the right of publicity; (iii) propose to identify limits to the right of publicity; (iv) to propose the identification of principles applicable to legal relations in the economic use of image rights. Rationale: The right of publicity obtained its autonomy in relation to other personality rights and in Brazil, it was raised to a constitutional fundamental right. The Civil Code treated the right of publicity in Article 20 that is subject to severe critics from the doctrine and cause several disputes in Courts, having been challenged its constitutionality. The Federal Supreme Court in the trial of ADI 4815 that had as its backdrop the need for authorization to produce biographies established rational balance between the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and right of publicity, recognizing the precedence of that freedom of speech on such right. The civil law operation can identify limits to the right of publicity in the production of contents that materialize the freedom of speech without having to seek for solution trough some resolution conflict techniques of constitutional rights. Hypothesis: The work brings as hypothesis that the right of publicity, like author s rights, is a personality right that allows the identification of limits to its exercise and to be subject of civil agreements with economic content, without destroying the core of such right or denying its legal nature. Theoretical and methodological aspects: This study develops an evaluation of the rights of publicity in order to initially identify it as a kind of legal status rather than subjective rights, to then integrate it into the personal assets of the person. Methods of the rules of evidence, analysis and synthesis were used to demonstrate the absence of apparent unanimity about the characteristics of the publicity rights. The case law, jurisprudence and the paradigms of foreign law were additional elements to illustrate the hypothesis. Result: The result was the identification of the boundaries of image rights, the principles that should be applied to relations that the image is the object, a proposal for a revision of Article 20 of the Brazilian Civil Code and of the Precedent 403 of the Superior Court of Justice / O trabalho tem como objetivos (i) demonstrar que nem todas as características dos direitos de personalidade se confirmam de forma efetiva no exercício cotidiano do direito à imagem no momento contemporâneo; (ii) evidenciar que a utilização econômica é uma realidade inexorável que exige a definição de novos contornos do direito à imagem; (iii) propor a identificação dos limites ao direito à imagem enquanto situação jurídica absoluta; (iv) propor a identificação de princípios aplicáveis às relações jurídicas que tenham com objeto à utilização econômica do direito à imagem. Justificativa: O direito à imagem conquistou sua autonomia em relação aos demais direitos de personalidade e no Brasil foi erguido à condição de direito fundamental. O Código Civil tratou no direito à imagem no artigo 20 que é objeto críticas doutrinárias e grandes disputas judiciais, tendo sido desafiado quanto sua constitucionalidade. O Supremo Tribunal Federal no julgamento da ADI 4815 que tinha como pano de fundo a necessidade de autorização para a produção de biografias estabeleceu racional de ponderação entre os direitos fundamentais de liberdade de expressão e à imagem, reconhecendo a precedência daquela liberdade sobre esse direito. A civilística pode identificar limites aos direito à imagem na produção de conteúdos que materializam a liberdade de expressão sem que se tenha que recorrer às técnicas de solução de conflitos aparentes entre direitos constitucionais. Hipótese: O trabalho traz como hipótese a afirmação de que o direito à imagem, tal qual o direito de autor, é um direito de personalidade que admite a identificação de limites ao seu exercício bem como que se estabeleçam com ele relações jurídicas de caráter econômico, sem que se destrua o núcleo essencial do direito ou se negue sua natureza jurídica. Aspectos teóricos e metodológicos: Desenvolveu-se uma avaliação do direito à imagem de modo a identifica-lo primeiramente como uma situação jurídica ao invés de um direito subjetivo, para em seguida, integrá-lo ao patrimônio da pessoa. Utilizou-se os métodos das regras de evidência, análise e síntese para demonstrar a ausência da aparente unanimidade sobre as características do direito à imagem. A casuística, a jurisprudência e os paradigmas de direito estrangeiro foram elementos adicionais para ilustrar a hipótese. Resultado: Os resultados obtidos foram a identificação dos limites do direito à imagem, os princípios que devem se aplicados às relações jurídicas de que seja objeto, uma proposta de revisão do art. 20 do Código Civil brasileiro e da Súmula 403 do Superior Tribunal de Justiça

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