Social Media...selfishness or natural human behaviour?

Recently, a number of cases and controversies have reminded us of the dangers of using images of or references to celebrities in our use of the ubiquitous social media.  

We’ve also been reminded of the role these celebrities play in advertising, licensing and public opinion, (remembering poignantly that many of us who have the good fortune to have internet access and global reach live in 'democracies').  

Perhaps of substantially equal significance, all but one of these cases arise from the use of social media to transmit messages or images, and all herald a new trend in the use of celebrity images in the increasing use of social media advertising......

These recent actions include Michael Jordan’s objection to advertisements congratulating him on his election to the Basketball Hall of Fame, to the Elvis Presley’s Estate’s objection to the use of Elvis impersonators to attract people to a Beretta firearms’ booth, to Katherine Heigl’s objection to the use of a photograph showing her leaving a Duane Reade store, to Shawn Merriman’s claim that Nike’s use of “Lights Out” infringed his professional football nickname, to even the White House’s banning of Presidential 'selfies' after Samsung reposted a selfie photo taken by baseballer David Ortiz of himself and President Barack Obama at a White House lawn event....Yet that’s the tip of the iceberg that threatens the use of the Internet and certainly the significant role that social media generally has developed in many of our lives  – most adhering to the new “right to be forgotten” established by the European Court of Justice.

Here’s an example (from this year's Oscar's Awards Ceremony in LA) of actions for those who have managed to ignore the blizzard of posts on each incident, along with the lesson to be learned:

This selfie itself raised no real legal issues – for once none of the celebrities raised any claims – and the image immediately went viral!

However, among Intellectual Property attorneys, the circumstance raised a couple of interesting questions that I will leave you with: (1) the idea of the selfie and the camera were both Ellen’s, but since Cooper actually triggered the shot – who owns copyright in the image?  And, (2) really, how much copyright protection exists for a spontaneous, unplanned digital photographic image? Thoughts?

posted by Patrick Schmid