Fashion Law Journal
Celebrity photos used to promote the brand on social media
There are three components that you need to think about when you use a picture to advertise your brand.
- The person in the photo (Right of Publicity)
- The photo itself and who owns it (Copyright)
- The Message (Endorsement)
Right to Publicity
Here are some ways you can infringe someone’s right to advertise:
- Use a selfie or picture of a celebrity on your brand’s Instagram without permission
- Take a photo of someone and calling it your own.
- Naming the product with the name of a celebrity. If a person is well known and the general public, after learning your product name, associates your product with the celebrity, then you are at risk of legal action.
Example- ‘Reese Ring’ or the ‘Angelina Clutch’.
Copyright
Here are several ways in which you can infringe copyright:
- Pulling images to be featured in your blog or other social media sites from Google. You have absolutely no idea who holds the copyright to those images and it might be a nightmare if you’re caught. Instead, with all the promotional content, use your own images, photos in the public domain, or stock photos.
- Not having full rights to use from the model and photographer. You can not automatically own the copyright to such images while you have a photo shoot. That photo is owned by your photographer and he or she has to grant you the right to use it (in writing!).
Endorsement
Here are several ways that you might infringe on the endorsement:
- Working with brand ambassadors and not revealing that you gave them products or paid them in return for their posts (social and blog). You and the ambassador will have to be honest and disclose the payment.
- In return for ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, running competitions or giveaways and not making it clear that the likes and shares were acquired in exchange for something free.
- Basically, you have to disclose how the act affects the way consumers view the products or influences their shopping habits.
