Advertising/marketing & celebrity photos?

Celeste Carrara

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I have been curious about this for awhile and thought I'd ask this question here.

I have seen many self published authors doing promo on Facebook, Goodreads, and blogs, etc...

Often they create "banners" that will be displayed across a page or a picture promo with their book title and include a celebrity's picture depicting their character/s. Is this allowed? I admit, some of them look really great. But, isn't this illegal? Don't you need the permission to use the image of a celebrity in promo?
 

nkkingston

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IANAL, but AFAIK it depends on where they got the image. There are multiple celebrities - especially models - who have images for sale on stock photo websites. If the usage of the image fits with the terms on the site, and the writer has bought the appropriate license, then it should be okay as long as the writer isn't claiming celebrity endorsement or implying the book is about the celebrity (false advertising). Even if the image is properly licensed there is a chance the author might get sued if the celebrity doesn't want to be associated with the product, but I don't know what the outcome would be.

If they've just pulled a random image off google and slapped it on a banner, then first and foremost they're infringing the photographers' copyright. They may also be implying celebrity endorsement/false advertising/making an association the celebrity isn't happy with, but I think the copyright side is more likely to hit them first because celebrity photographers don't sell their work cheap.

Under the circumstances, I suspect a lot of these writers are probably in the latter camp. They may come from fandom, where banners often get a blind eye turned to them since they're promoting the book/show/film/game, and not realise that there are legal ways to go about making these things. Alternately, they may just not care. It's amazing how many people who are rabid about their own copyright infringe other people's just because they're not working in the same medium.
 

slhuang

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IANAL either, but +1 to nkkingston. Unless they bought it as a stock photo for commercial use (unlikely if it's a celebrity), this is NOT okay. Two reasons:

* Photographer copyright.

* Right of publicity for the celebrity. This is not recognized everywhere, but it is in many places. In the U.S. it's under state jurisdiction. Here's the Wikipedia description of U.S. law, cases that have been brought to suit, and the states that recognize the right. Some, like California (celebrity central -- heh), even continue to recognize the right for some time after the person's death.

If these authors are banking on being small fry whom no one will come after, I think that is a poor plan. There are plenty of cases of people being sued for illegal use of images. All it takes is one person who cares noticing their image or likeness being used without their permission.
 

Maryn

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Yeah, listen to what both those above have said. Authors do not have rights to the photographer's (or artist's) end product, nor do they have the rights to a celebrity's image, unless those rights have been granted or purchased.

Seriously, if I'm, say, Tina Fey, and someone I never heard of has a banner promoting her self-published book featuring my smiling face, am I going to be cool with that? Does your answer change if it's fetish porn? Or the work espouses a political or social opinion Ms. Fey is unlikely to agree with?

Or say I'm the photographer who knocked herself out getting Tina to laugh and capturing just that expression, and here's some stranger using it to sell her book? Is that okay with me?

Not hardly.

Maryn, sure
 

Celeste Carrara

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Just to clarify... I was not planning on doing this nor was I interested in this because I wanted to do it myself.

I have been seeing this done more and more & everytime I see it I think to myself how the heck are these authors getting away with this? These pictures I'm seeing are not of "D" list celebrities that you can find stock photos of. I'm not going to "out" any authors here, but if you look on any Facebook page that promotes books you'll see tons of them for author promos. And I am speaking specifically to my genre - erotic romance.