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There is “right of publicity”. If I’m right, if you take a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio you can’t just use it in a commercial to promote a product without his pe

There is “right of publicity”. If I’m right, if you take a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio you can’t just use it in a commercial to promote a product without his permission even though you own the copyright of the photo. Nor can you place an actor in a movie without their permission - they did that with Crispin Glover in Back to the Future 2, he sued the studio and I believe won or the studio settled.

oh_sigh 3y ago
What if you found some random joe that looks just like DiCaprio, and paid him $100 to use his likeness in a movie? That's always been possible, but in the past it would be clear that random Joe isn't a good actor and DiCaprio is. But if the whole thing is CGI anyway, you can make him as good or bad of an actor as you want.
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  You could do that but your cast will not include the name DiCaprio, which is usually a big thing that draws viewership.
- trashtester 3y ago
  One might argue that this would be no different from some artist (or AI) painting a painting in the style of Picasso. As long as you make no attempt at passing it off as an original Picasso, it may be seen as ok, unless we extend intellectual property rights to cover style.... ... which we do already do, of course, if the protected item is something like an iPhone. In both cases, though, if you falsely claim that the actor/phone IS the real thing, then it's clearly forgery. And, I suppose, if you specifically bake too much of a similarity into it (ie a phone that looks exactly like an iphone, except the logo), one may argue that the likness effectively misleads the same way a forgery would, and that it can be illegal for that reason.
- kthejoker2 3y ago
  There's a movie Beach Babes from Beyond (not great wouldn't recommend) with Stallone, Swayze, Travolta, and Sheen in it. Unfortunately that's Jackie, Don, Joey,and Joe instead of Sylvester, Patrick, John, and Martin. So it's no surefire thing.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  DiCaprio can probably sue you and win especially if you are deliberately trying to misrepresent his involvement in your project. As mentioned in my previous post, in Back to the Future 2, the studio hired another actor to play Crispin Glover's role by wearing a mask of his face to look like him. Glover sued and got a nice payout. This would not have been a problem if they just recasted the role like they did with Claudia Wells (who was replaced by Elisabeth Shue).

oh_sigh 3y ago

What if you found some random joe that looks just like DiCaprio, and paid him $100 to use his likeness in a movie? That's always been possible, but in the past it would be clear that random Joe isn't a good actor and DiCaprio is. But if the whole thing is CGI anyway, you can make him as good or bad of an actor as you want.

lacrimacida 3y ago
You could do that but your cast will not include the name DiCaprio, which is usually a big thing that draws viewership.
trashtester 3y ago
One might argue that this would be no different from some artist (or AI) painting a painting in the style of Picasso. As long as you make no attempt at passing it off as an original Picasso, it may be seen as ok, unless we extend intellectual property rights to cover style.... ... which we do already do, of course, if the protected item is something like an iPhone. In both cases, though, if you falsely claim that the actor/phone IS the real thing, then it's clearly forgery. And, I suppose, if you specifically bake too much of a similarity into it (ie a phone that looks exactly like an iphone, except the logo), one may argue that the likness effectively misleads the same way a forgery would, and that it can be illegal for that reason.
kthejoker2 3y ago
There's a movie Beach Babes from Beyond (not great wouldn't recommend) with Stallone, Swayze, Travolta, and Sheen in it. Unfortunately that's Jackie, Don, Joey,and Joe instead of Sylvester, Patrick, John, and Martin. So it's no surefire thing.
TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
DiCaprio can probably sue you and win especially if you are deliberately trying to misrepresent his involvement in your project. As mentioned in my previous post, in Back to the Future 2, the studio hired another actor to play Crispin Glover's role by wearing a mask of his face to look like him. Glover sued and got a nice payout. This would not have been a problem if they just recasted the role like they did with Claudia Wells (who was replaced by Elisabeth Shue).