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Decision of Note: <B>CA's USPA Covers Computer-Altered Likeness</B>
The Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, Division Seven, decided that claims over the use of computer-altered likenesses of the plaintiffs in children's television programming were covered by the Uniform Single Publication Act (USPA), Calif. Civ. Code Sec. 3425.1 et seq. Thus, the claims were barred by California's relevant two-year statute of limitations. Long v. The Walt Disney Co., B164750.
The plaintiffs filed suit 2 years and 1 day after the defendants stopped using the computer-altered images as fictional cartoon characters on ABC broadcasts and in related media. The suit's causes of action included violation of right of publicity, appropriation of likenesses and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The plaintiffs argued that their claims fell outside the USPA because, rather than defamation-like claims based on harm to reputation, the claims were based on emotional distress.
Affirming the trial court's grant of summary judgment for the defendants, the court of appeal noted, however, that: “California courts have held that the USPA's phrase 'any tort' means exactly that. … Plaintiffs do not, and cannot, dispute that each of the claims before the court sounds in tort and arises from the broadcasts and related Internet activity. Nor can they evade their allegations that their injuries arose from attempts to humiliate, ridicule and defame them. As a result, plaintiffs' claims ' however styled ' are governed by the USPA.”
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