Jennifer Rothman

My new @HarvLRev article is out today! In it I consider how overlapping rights in a person's identity have created an "identity thicket." The best way out is to reclaim trademark law's longstanding respect for autonomy & dignity and to employ preemption. harvardlawreview.org/2022/03/naviga…

cc: @PCL_CTIC @pennlaw @nyulaw @Harvard

The deadline is approaching to submit your paper for the Fourth Annual Trademark and Unfair Competition Roundtable. To submit a draft paper, please fill out this form: cvent.me/RXxbZ0 & upload an anonymized version. We look forward to reading your submissions.

FanDuel, MLBPA settle player likenesses lawsuit ICYMI ⁦@lexlanham⁩ ⁦@profrothman⁩ ⁦@devlinhartline⁩ espn.com/mlb/story/_/id…

Next week, Jennifer Rothman will discuss the convergence of copyright and right of publicity law, and whether copyright is the appropriate framework to address the rising challenges posed by deepfakes, digital replicas and voice clones. Join Us! copyrightsociety.org/event/2024-bra…

Thank you to Margo Bagley for this generous and thoughtful Jotwell review of my forthcoming article with @markpmckenna on "Amazon's Quiet Overhaul of the Trademark System." Article appearing soon in the @CalifLRev ip.jotwell.com/fraud-delays-a…

New from @profrothman: Postmortem Publicity Rights at the Property-Personality Divide. I've already recommended it to my students. It's forthcoming in Private Law Theory & Intellectual Property, Cambridge Univ. Press 2025, eds. Balganesh et al. / papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

@LpcProf Thanks! So happy to hear you found it useful.

Think Xerox and Q-tip would object to this ⁦@nytimes⁩ connections answer

Fascinating: NYT's lawyers will soon be able to review OpenAI's training data "in a secure room on a secure laptop" as part of its copyright lawsuit. Both sides have just hammered out the terms of the training data inspection: documentcloud.org/documents/2519…

In case anyone had not realized how nutty things are getting in college sports and with NIL for student athletes—worth a read nytimes.com/2024/10/04/us/…

Happy official start of Fall

@cgarber8 Thanks. Will fix it. 😀

Finally had a chance to write-up my thoughts about the Copyright Office Report calling for Congressional Action on Digital Replicas - go.shr.lc/3ZoftPD

Also....I meant "off" the presses, but sadly x/twitter still doesn't have the edit function.

Hot of the presses, the House introduces its companion NO FAKES Act: rightofpublicityroadmap.com/news_commentar…

I also mention in this post that another bill is likely to be introduced soon in the House (PADRA) which takes a Lanham Act-based approach

@cgarber8 The NO FAKES Act does not explain what happens. The Copyright Office Report suggests that works created during the licensing period should continue to be able to be distributed. The Copyright Office also does not think there should be liability for creation alone.

Don't wait – check your state's voter registration deadline today and make sure you're registered and ready to vote. And then share this with your friends and family so everyone's ready to vote early or by Election Day. VoteSaveAmerica.com/Obama

One key thing to understand about the Report is that it understandably brings to bear a copyright frame. Yet, "we need to think about [IP] rights in people differently than we think about [IP] in expressive works." I explain this more detail at: rightofpublicityroadmap.com/news_commentar…

For some thoughts on how it matches and differs from the Copyright Office approach check out my recent post on the Copyright Office's Report: rightofpublicityroadmap.com/news_commentar…

Finally wrote up thoughts on the NO FAKES Act, introduced right before Congress's August recess. This digital replica bill improves upon earlier version but still risks control over our own voices and likenesses and public deception. For details see rightofpublicityroadmap.com/news_commentar…

For my thoughts on the NO FAKES Act see: rightofpublicityroadmap.com/news_commentar…

Copyright Office suggests that a federal law should be adopted. The specifics largely track NO FAKES Act circulated the same day though parts ways in some instances. E.g., Office does not think postmortem rights necessary & recommends a fair use approach rather than exemptions