Personal rights in advertising
The members of the MARQUES copyright team organised a workshop on rights clearance in advertising campaigns on 10 March 2022 as part of the MARQUES Spring Meeting held at the Hilton Barcelona.
The workshop covered various topics relevant in this context, including personality rights, music and fictional works/characters. The speakers emphasised that due to the lack of harmonisation of the law, it is difficult to take a uniform view of the various case constellations that arise in the clarification of rights.
Thomas Hertl of ARNECKE SIBETH DABELSTEIN discussed the use of personal rights in advertising campaigns and explained that the permissibility always depends on the consent of the persons whose name or image is used.
At the same time he also pointed out that there are exceptional cases, such as cases in which reference is made to current events or in special constellations when “look alikes” or similar names are used, the legal situation is sometimes more difficult to assess.
To illustrate these aspects, Thomas went on to show humorous advertising campaigns by Burger King and SIXT in which the names or images of famous people were used in Germany without their consent.