Privacy, Property and Personality

A detailed comparative analysis of intellectual property rights in Europe and the United States.

The protection of privacy and personality is one of the most fascinating issues confronting any legal system. This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of intellectual property rights in an individual's name, voice or likeness in the major legal systems: France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.The protection of privacy and personality is one of the most fascinating issues confronting any legal system. This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of the laws relating to commercial exploitation of personality in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. It examines the difficulties in reconciling privacy and personality with intellectual property rights in an individual's identity and in balancing such rights with the competing interests of freedom of expression and freedom of competition. This analysis will be useful for lawyers in legal systems which have yet to develop a sophisticated level of protection for interests in personality. Equally, lawyers in systems which provide a higher level of protection will benefit from the comparative insights into determining the nature and scope of intellectual property rights in personality, particularly questions relating to assignment, licensing, and post-mortem protection.