Marilyn Monroe’s image is big business. The Estate of Marilyn Monroe makes over 30 million a year in licensing income. So, when it comes to the creation of a virtual Marilyn we can safely assume it will involve lots of money over many years. That’s why there’s been such a fuss about who owns her image.
Virtual Marilyn LLC says it holds the copyright registration which includes audiovisual work depicting a computer generated Marilyn. Their idea is to have “Virtual Marilyn” travel the country to sing and interact with real live musicians. Sounds fun, but her statutory heirs don’t think so.
Ironically, when Marilyn was alive she never registered any part of her persona as a trademark. She once said, “I know I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.”
The lawsuit presents a cascade of legal issues from copyrights, to trademarks, to publicity rights. Although we all know Marilyn Monroe died in California of a drug overdose in 1962, she wasn’t officially residing in California at the time of her death. In August 2012, the Marilyn Monroe estate lost a legal battle when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the estate couldn’t claim Marilyn Monroe was a resident of California. Instead, she was a resident of New York. Unfortunately for them, New York’s publicity right laws are far more restrictive than California’s laws. Besides, New York doesn’t even allow post-mortem publicity rights.
This is a case to watch because the outcome could be worth millions. The industry of resurrecting dead celebrities has the potential to be very lucrative. Can you imagine a world where not only Marilyn Monroe, but famous stars such as John Wayne, Michael Jackson, or Elvis could virtually interact with the general public. I have to admit it would be rather fun.
