Source: https://www.rightofpublicityroadmap.com/law/michigan
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 22:11:07+00:00

Document:
Michigan recognizes both a right of publicity and the tort of invasion of privacy by appropriation. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the right of publicity is descendible under Michigan law.
Federal courts have held that the state would recognize a right of publicity. At least one state appellate court has agreed with this characterization.
It is not clear whether the appropriation tort is synonymous with the right of publicity. Federal courts have suggested that it is. Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development v. Target Corp., No. 15-10880 (11th Cir., Jan. 4, 2016); Ruffin-Steinback v. dePasse, 267 F.3d 457 (6th Cir. 2001); Hauf v. Life Extension Foundation, 547 F.Supp.2d 771, 774-75 (W.D. Mich. 2008).
The state recognizes both a right to privacy and the appropriation branch of that tort. The state Supreme Court, however, has held that public figures who have sought the limelight cannot make a claim under a right to privacy rubric.
Federal courts have recognized that the right of publicity is descendible. No state court has ruled on the question.
At least one state court has approved of the federal courts' interpretation of Michigan law generally, and described the right of publicity in terms of a property right, distinct from the state's right of privacy. Arnold v. Treadwell, 2009 WL 2136909 (Mich. Ct. App., July 16, 2009). This suggests that Michigan courts might find the right to be descendible at common law. Something that a recent district court in Minnesota held with regard to that state's common law in Paisley Park Enters v. Boxill, 253 F. Supp.3d 1037.
Federal courts have recognized that the right of publicity, and potentially the tort of appropriation, require a commercially valuable persona to have been used.
Federal courts have extended Michigan’s right of publicity to include recognizable catch phrases. Several courts, however, have rejected claims based on appropriation of voice, at least where the singer(s) were not distinctive.
The decision in Nichols v. Moore could also be based on the public interest in knowing about the brother of the Oklahoma City bomber without regard to commerciality. The decision does, however, at the very least suggest that commercial speech and noncommercial speech may be treated differently when considering First Amendment and First Amendment-infused defenses to right of publicity claims. Some state courts also have cited to the Restatement (Second) of Torts approach which only requires a use to the defendant’s advantage without regard to commerciality.
Michigan courts have held that the First Amendment protects the use of a person’s name or likeness when the use is newsworthy or otherwise a matter of “legitimate public concern.” Michigan sits within the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has applied the “Rogers/relatedness/Restatement Test” to evaluate First Amendment defenses in the context of the right of publicity, as well as employing a balancing approach and the transformativeness test.
Under the Rogers/Restatement test, the use of a person’s identity in an expressive work is protected by the First Amendment unless the use is “wholly unrelated” to the work or is “simply a disguised commercial advertisement for the sale of goods or services.” In ETW Corp. v. Jireh Publishing, the Sixth Circuit cited this test with approval, but also considered the Tenth Circuit’s balancing approach and California’s transformative use test.
Federal courts have held some right of publicity claims under Michigan law preempted by federal copyright law.

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