The courts in California have developed the strongest legal protection for famous performers and the "right to publicity." In a series of rulings, this right has been extended to protect a performer's image or likeness, not just his or her actual name or face.
In one oft-cited ruling, TV game show hostess Vanna White sued and won $403,000 in damages from Samsung Electronics over an ad that featured a futuristic robot in a blond wig turning letters on a game show.
Singers Bette Midler and gravel-voiced Tom Waits also used the law to stop commercials that used distinctive voices that resembled theirs.
Later, actors George Wendt and John Ratzenberger, who had played chubby Norm and postman Cliff on the 1980s TV series "Cheers," sued to stop Paramount from licensing the use of two similar-looking characters to be used in airport bars. Paramount settled the case after an eight-year dispute.
Lawyers for Major League Baseball cited many of these California cases in their appeal to the Supreme Court. Nearly all of them came from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which some law professors have called "the Hollywood circuit."
Courts in other regions, including the U.S. 8th Circuit Court in St. Louis and the 2nd Circuit in New York, have been less friendly to the rights of performers and more inclined to rule for free speech.
The Supreme Court has passed up several chances before to resolve this divide. Baseball lawyers hope that this time the court will affirm that marketers cannot make use of famous names without their permission.
The court is likely to announce Monday whether it will hear the appeal.
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david.savage@latimes.com
