Opinion ID: 3035537
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Unauthorized Use of Name or Likeness Under

Text: Pennsylvania Law Pennsylvania law grants individuals the exclusive right to their name and likeness, which includes voice. 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 8316. “Any natural person whose name or likeness has commercial value and is used for any commercial or advertising purpose” without consent may sue for an injunction and damages. Id. § 8316(a). A deceased person’s estate may bring such an action, id. § 8316(b)(3), although the right only lasts until thirty years after the person’s death, id. § 8316(c). The District Court held that the NFL violated this statute lines, does not focus on future opportunities for the defendant to use the plaintiff’s image, as the District Court implied. See Facenda, 488 F. Supp. 2d at 512 (the eighth Downing factor favors Facenda because the NFL’s ongoing marketing agreement with EA Sports means “the question of NFL’s right to use Facenda’s recordings is likely to arise in the future”). Rather, the eighth factor concerns whether (a) the plaintiff plans to endorse a product that competes with a defendant’s existing product or (b) the defendant plans to launch a new product that competes with a product the plaintiff already endorses. See Wendt v. Host Int’l, Inc., 125 F.3d 806, 814 (9th Cir. 1997) (applying the eighth Downing factor to consider the potential that the plaintiff may in the future endorse goods similar to those defendant had been marketing using plaintiff’s likeness). 40 with its use of Facenda’s voice because (a) his voice’s commercial value was not disputed, (b) the NFL used his voice for a commercial purpose, and (c) the standard release Facenda signed did not consent to the use of his voice in endorsements. Facenda, 488 F. Supp. 2d at 502. The NFL argued that its use of Facenda’s voice was merely “incidental.” See 2 J. Thomas McCarthy, The Rights of Publicity and Privacy § 7:20, at 42 (2d ed. 2000 & Supp. 2008). The District Court rejected this defense because the NFL stated a specific purpose for using the three sound clips of Facenda’s voice: “enhanc[ing] the parallel between Madden NFL [06] and NFL football.” Facenda, 488 F. Supp. 2d at 503. The NFL does not pursue its incidental-orfleeting-use defense on appeal and we thus deem that argument to be waived. We agree that the NFL has violated § 8316 on its face for precisely the reasons provided by the District Court, and we see no disputed issues of material fact on that question. On appeal, the NFL instead focuses on another argument it raised in the District Court—that copyright law preempts the Estate’s right-of-publicity claim.11 11 The NFL did not raise a First Amendment defense to the Estate’s right-of-publicity claim, thereby waiving that defense. Thus, we need not engage in a First Amendment analysis with respect to this claim, though we note that freedom of expression issues arise in the right-of-publicity context analogous to those discussed above. See supra Section V.A.1. 41
A threshold issue for the NFL’s preemption defense is whether the NFL has a valid copyright in the sound recordings of Facenda’s voice. The NFL notes that it excerpted the sound clips at issue from copyrighted productions of NFL Films. Moreover, the sound clips represent Facenda’s readings of copyrighted NFL scripts, making the clips “derivative works” (of the scripts) in which a distinct copyright exists. See 17 U.S.C. § 106(2) (granting copyright holders the exclusive right to prepare derivative works); id. § 102(a)(7) (allowing copyrights in sound recordings, which are separate and distinct from the copyrights in musical compositions of § 102(a)(2)). Either way, the NFL had the copyright in the sound clips. By using the sound clips of Facenda’s voice in “The Making of Madden NFL 06,” the NFL was exercising its exclusive right to make derivative works of those sound clips under § 106(2). In effect, it was “sampling” itself, making a collage, taking a small piece of an old work and using it in a new work—as when a hip-hop group samples the drum part from James Brown’s “Funky Drummer.” It is well-established that copyrights extend to samples, even brief samples. See, e.g., Grand Upright Music Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc., 780 F. Supp. 182, 183 (S.D.N.Y. 1991). For instance, no third party to this case may use those recordings unless a limitation on or exception to the NFL’s § 106 rights applies, such as the fair use doctrine of 17 U.S.C. § 107. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 42 Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 571–72, 579–80 (1994) (holding a parody of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” may be a fair use). Thus, the NFL is correct that copyright law, taken in isolation, gives it the exclusive right (absent a limitation or exception) to use the sound recordings of Facenda’s voice in the way that it did. The question for us is how the NFL’s (federal) copyright relates to Facenda’s (state-law) right of publicity. Does the statelaw right of publicity exist irrespective of the federal copyright? Put another way, does federal copyright law preempt the right of publicity claim under Pennsylvania law?
The Copyright Code has an express preemption provision, which provides that all legal or equitable rights that [1] are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright as specified by section 106 in [2] works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression and come within the subject matter of copyright as specified by sections 102 and 103 . . . are governed exclusively by this title. 43 17 U.S.C. § 301(a). In other words, for a state-law claim to be preempted by copyright law, it must protect (1) an exclusive right in (2) a work within copyright’s subject matter. The same section of the Copyright Code goes on to explain that this provision is not meant to “annul[] or limit[]” any rights in works outside the subject matter of copyright under state law. Id. § 301(b)(1). Nor does it limit any intellectual property rights from other federal statutes, which is why there is no question of preemption regarding the Estate’s Lanham Act claim. See id. § 301(d).
The Estate’s claim seeks to block the NFL from exercising its exclusive rights under 17 U.S.C. § 106 to reproduce, distribute, perform, and make derivative works from sound recordings in which it owns the copyrights. In that sense, it could be thought “equivalent” to a copyright holder’s exclusive rights. 17 U.S.C. § 301(a), (b)(3); cf. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enters., 723 F.2d 195, 201 (2d Cir. 1983), rev’d on other grounds, 471 U.S. 539 (1985) (“If there is a qualitative difference between the asserted right [a claim for tortious interference with contract] and the exclusive right under the Act of preparing derivative works based on the copyrighted work, we are unable to discern it. In both cases, it is the act of unauthorized publication which causes the violation.”). Under the first prong of express copyright preemption 44 analysis, some courts have looked to the elements of a state-law cause of action. The presence of an “additional element” required to state a cause of action under state law, beyond what a copyright-infringement claim would require, renders the statelaw cause of action not equivalent to a copyright. See Dielsi v. Falk, 916 F. Supp. 985, 991–93 (C.D. Cal. 1996). Pennsylvania’s right-of-publicity statute requires a showing of commercial value, defined as a “[v]aluable interest in a natural person’s name or likeness that is developed through the investment of time, effort and money.” 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 8316(e). The requirement under the statute that Facenda’s voice have “commercial value,” id. § 8316(a), provides an additional element beyond what a copyright-infringement claim requires, see 1 Nimmer on Copyright § 1.01[B][1][c], at 1-29 to -30 (“Invasion of privacy may sometimes occur by acts of reproduction, distribution, performance, or display, but inasmuch as the essence of the tort does not lie in such acts, pre-emption should not apply. The same may be said of the right of publicity.”); accord 2 McCarthy, Rights of Publicity and Privacy § 11:50, at 785. Because the Estate’s right-of-publicity claim relied on an element not equivalent to any of the exclusive rights granted to federal copyright holders, we hold that the first prong of § 301(a) is not satisfied here. 45
Looking to the second prong of 17 U.S.C. § 301(a), does Facenda’s voice fall under the subject matter of copyright? The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has stated, in the context of vocal imitations, that “[a] voice is not copyrightable. The sounds are not ‘fixed.’ What is put forward as protectible [sic] here is more personal than any work of authorship.” Midler v. Ford Motor Co., 849 F.2d 460, 462 (9th Cir. 1988). One can fix Facenda’s voice in a tangible medium by recording it, but one cannot divorce his distinctive voice itself from the Facenda identity (or persona). See 1 Nimmer on Copyright § 1.01[B][1][c], at 1-30 (“The ‘work’ that is the subject of the right of publicity is the persona, i.e., the name and likeness of a celebrity or other individual. A persona can hardly be said to constitute a ‘writing’ of an ‘author’ within the meaning of the Copyright Clause of the Constitution.”); 2 McCarthy, Rights of Publicity and Privacy § 11:53, at 802 (“The sound in plaintiff’s recording is merely an indicium by which the listening public can identify plaintiff's persona and identity.”). We hold that Facenda’s voice is outside the subject matter of copyright.12 Thus, the second prong of § 301(a) is not satisfied.