An article written by Elon Law alumna Anna Arnopolsky was published in the June 2012 edition of the North Carolina Bar Association (NCBA) Intellectual Property Section newsletter. The article, "Can ‘Tell-Alls' Tell All?", provides a briefing of right to publicity laws in North Carolina and across the nation.
In her article, Arnopolsky L’12 uses case study examples of celebrities and their attempts at “tell-all” books and interviews including, disclosures by women featured in Vh-1’s “Basketball Wives” and a book written by Linda Bollea (ex-wife of professional wrestler Hulk Hogan), among others.
“Since North Carolina is not similarly situated to celebrity-ridden states such as California, Florida, and New York, publicity rights are not seen at the forefront of the intellectual property arena,” Arnopolsky writes in her article. “Nevertheless, with the rise and increasing popularity of modeling agencies, professional athletic teams and NASCAR, litigation concerning publicity rights in North Carolina may become more widespread in the near future.”
Tracing the right to publicity back to its roots in the right to privacy, Arnopolsky provides a historical backdrop in order to explain the current status of the law in North Carolina. Arnopolsky writes about the lack of a statutory right to publicity in the state and the limited areas of common law under which right to publicity claims could be brought, such as tort or copyright law.
“If North Carolina has the appropriate personal and subject matter jurisdiction, a claim of right to publicity could be a case of first impression since that right has not been recognized as independent from privacy,” Arnopolsky writes.
While at Elon Law, Arnopolsky was selected by the editorial board of the Journal of Legal Studies in Business (JLSB) to serve as law student staff editor. She was a member of the Moot Court Board at the law school, assisted in legal research for faculty, and provided Russian translation services for the Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic at Elon Law.
By Courtney Roller L’13