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111 Law Libr. J. 154 (2019)
The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World

handle is hein.journals/llj111 and id is 155 raw text is: LAW LIBRARY JOURNAL style content, the book's detailed index will allow them to quickly pinpoint the discussion of desired source titles and topics. 132 Such minor stylistic quibbles seem inevitable with a book that covers so much historical ground for such a broad potential audience, and they are not intended to downplay the magnitude of the authors' multiyear effort in crafting The Yale Law School Guide to Research in American Legal History. The title remains a remarkable achievement and is an essential reference volume for academic law libraries. With its inexpensive price and accessible treatment of legal concepts, it would also be a very useful addition to the collections of many general academic and public libraries. Rothman, Jennifer E. The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018. 240p. $39.95. Reviewed by Tracy Eaton* ¶33 Although perhaps not as well known as the right of privacy, the right of publicity is a right that Jennifer Rothman makes clear from the beginning is one that affects us all. It is the right to control how others can use one's name and image, and Rothman's introduction hooks the reader from the beginning by name-drop- ping famous examples. Some of the mentioned cases include Vanna White's suc- cessful lawsuit against Samsung for using a wigged robot on the set of Wheel of Fortune in an advertisement; the Rosa Parks Institute's suit against Target to enjoin them from selling plaques honoring the activist; and Michael Jackson's heirs' ongo- ing battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the value of the right to use his name and image. However, this is not a right afforded only to celebrities; when granted by a state, it is a right available to all individuals. 134 The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World has three parts and an epilogue, each named after a physics concept. Part I, The Big Bang, explores the evolution of the right of publicity from its origins in the right of pri- vacy. The right of publicity, or the right to control the use of a persons name and image, is governed almost entirely by state and common law. No federal statute addresses this right, and only one U.S. Supreme Court case even touches on it. Rothman traces the term right of publicity to Haelan Laboratories v. Topps Chew- ing Gum,' a case involving a dispute between two companies regarding the use of a baseball player's image. By noting that a man has a right in the publicity value of his photograph9 in that case, the federal courts involved themselves in developing and expanding this new right. 135 Part II, The Inflationary Era, traces the development of the right of pub- licity post-Haelan, during which courts transformed it into a transferable, prop- erty-like right, with federal courts anticipating and speculating about what state courts would do in these cases. Rothman attributes the expansion of the right of publicity to two specific occurrences: first, the U.S. Supreme Court's hearing of its only right of publicity case to date, Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting;o and * @ Tracy Eaton, 2019. Library Specialist, University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law, Dallas, Texas. 8. 202 E2d 866 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 346 U.S. 816 (1953). 9. Id. at 868. 10. 433 U.S. 562 (1977). 154 Vol. 111:1 [2019-71

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