this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
92 points (88.3% liked)

Technology

58091 readers
3064 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

[James] Dean has been cast as the star in a new, upcoming movie called Back to Eden.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

There's already a thing called "likeness rights" that actors have. Presumably the filmmakers in this case made a deal with whoever inherited those rights when James Dean died.

The article has a bit on this:

In general, when a celebrity dies, "rights to publicity" pass on from the celebrity to next of kin, or to the party granted these rights in a will. But Kahn says even a will, which will usually dictate who will benefit financially from the commercial use of the dead celebrity's image and likeness, holds limited legal weight since "it's not like a contract because it's a one-way document". The power for how that person's image is used passes to their living executor.

People need to realize that dead people do not have rights, only living people have rights. A dead person can't go to court.