Right of Publicity Decisions

The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon decided that a right-of-publicity claim over use of the plaintiff's photo in a book was barred by Oregon's 2-year statute of limitations for such claims. Johnson v. Harper/Collins, 06-3036-AA. Pro se plaintiff Donald Johnson filed suit over publication of a photo of him on a high school baseball team that appeared in the Ricky Henderson autobiography 'Off Base: Confessions of a Thief.' The book was published in June 1994. The district court noted: 'Even if the court allows that plaintiff did not learn of the book's publication until March 5, 2004, when plaintiff wrote to defendant indicating that he was aware of the photograph at issue in the book ' plaintiff filed his claim in this case on May 30, 2006, more than 2 years after he discovered the publication of the book and the photograph at issue.'

In any case, the court added: '[P]laintiff has no 'established public familiarity [of his image],' nor has plaintiff alleged that his picture was wrongly obtained or published beyond plaintiff's claim at bar. The book is a biography of Henderson. Henderson's membership on his own high school baseball team is part of his biography. The inclusion of the photograph and appearance of plaintiff in the photograph do not convey any endorsement of Henderson or anything about Henderson. I find that plaintiff's appearance in the photograph is incidental; therefore, requiring either plaintiff's permission or payment to plaintiff for use of the team photo in the book is not required as a matter of law.'