Long Dead Celebrity Names

It depends. Marilyn Monroe has been dead for many years but her estate holds the copyright and other legal rights to her name and image. Same goes for Einstein. You need to do a search at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (uspto.gov) to determine if anyone has trademarked the name.

@spikedo Thanks for responding. This artist has been dead for ~70 years. There is no trademark in the US; not sure about elsewhere -- she was not from the US. I will research the foreign trademark angle, although I don't even know if it could be brought against someone in the US.

If there is no trademark, here or abroad, do you think I am scot-free to register?

A celebrity name does not need to be trademarked to be protected, if the estate or heirs decide to come after a name they can come after a name. They don't have to use the UDRP either, they can take to court under the ACPA and seek $100,000 damages.

The Celebrities Rights Act or Celebrity Rights Act was passed in California in 1985, which enabled a celebrity's personality rights to survive his or her death.[1] Previously, the 1979 Lugosi v. Universal Pictures decision by the California Supreme Court held that Bela Lugosi's personality rights could not pass to his heirs, as a copyright would have. The court ruled that any rights of publicity, and rights to his image, terminated with Lugosi's death.[2]

California Civil Code section 3344[3] is for the publicity rights of living persons, while Civil Code section 3344.1,[4] known as the Astaire Celebrity Image Protection Act, grants statutory post mortem rights to the estate of a "deceased personality", where:

• that personality had been "any natural person whose name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness has commercial value at the time of his or her death",[5]
• any person using such personality's "name, voice, signature, photograph or likeness on or in products, merchandise or goods" without prior consent was liable to be sued for damages and profits arising from the unauthorized use,[6] and
• such prior consent may only be given by persons to whom the personality had transferred such power by contract or trust prior to his death, or by trust or will after his death, or, where no such latter provision was made, his spouse, children, and/or grandchildren,[7] but
• "a play, book, magazine, newspaper, musical composition, audiovisual work, radio or television program, single and original work of art, work of political or newsworthy value, or an advertisement or commercial announcement for any of these works, shall not be considered a product, article of merchandise, good, or service if it is fictional or nonfictional entertainment, or a dramatic, literary, or musical work."[8]

In 1999, the period of protection was extended from fifty years after a person's death to seventy years.[9] Similar laws have been enacted by 12 other states in the United States.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Celebrities_Rights_Act

llcacquire said:

Just wondering what governs the legality of registering a dead celebrity's name..

Click to expand...

I'd add that as usual it depends how you use it - a fan site with no adverts using a domain that is not offered for sale is possiblly ok but probably not what you had in mind.

For quite a few years the domain Groucho.com pointed to and ad-free version o f this funny, and famous, letter to Warner Bros about trademark on the word Casablanca
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/02/i-had-no-idea-that-city-of-casablanca.html


Apparently groucho.com was sold for just $1961 in 2012 but for some reason I thought I read a higher figure somewhere, maybe 5k http://www.domaininvesting.com/october-great-domains-auction-results/
Apparently the Groucho lot can be keen to protect their mark - but the domain now goes to a blatant parking page. Watch that space.

FWIW Groucho Marx died in 1977. From my research so far, the right of publicity (which varies on a state by state basis) sometimes extends for as much as 70 years after death. But it does appear to "expire" at that point, which I believe (but am not sure yet) means the person's name and likeness become akin to public domain -- like when copyright expires and you can re-produce whole books word-for-word without threat.