Opinion ID: 1327667
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Survivability of Claim

Text: We further hold the right to control the use of one's identity is a property right that is transferable, assignable, and survives the death of the named individual. The Supreme Court of Georgia has observed, the trend since the early common law has been to recognize survivability of this right. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ctr. for Soc. Change, Inc. v. Am. Heritage Prods., Inc., 250 Ga. 135, 296 S.E.2d 697, 705 (1982) (stating appropriation of another's name and likeness without consent and for the financial gain of the appropriator is a tort and holding that the right of publicity survives the death of the owner and is inheritable and devisable). The Georgia court reasoned that the right of publicity is assignable during a person's lifetime because, without this characteristic, full commercial exploitation of one's name and likeness is practically impossible. Id. at 704. Likewise, if such rights are assignable, they should also be inheritable and devisable. Id.; see also McFarland v. Miller, 14 F.3d 912 (3d Cir.1994) (concluding the right of publicity is a property right that survives the death of an individual); Prima v. Darden Restaurants, Inc., 78 F.Supp.2d 337 (D.N.J.2000) (holding, in a case involving the widow of a music performer, that New Jersey law recognizes the right of publicity as a property right that descends to the named person's estate upon his death); Estate of Presley v. Russen, 513 F.Supp. 1339 (D.N.J.1981) (deciding the right of publicity is a property right rather than a personal right that is attached only to the individual and that it is assignable during the person's lifetime and descends upon the individual's death like any other intangible property right). Moreover, it appears that this Court recognized the survivability of the claim in Holloman when it defined the right of privacy as the right to live without one's name, picture or statue, or that of a relative, made public against his will. Holloman, 192 S.C. at 458, 7 S.E.2d at 171. The inclusion of the right to protect the privacy of a relative necessarily contemplates survivability of the right.