earticle

영어

The purpose of this article is to provide the most appropriate form of legal protection far publicity in Korea. One of the most frequent uses of publicity occurs in commercials. However, due to expensive guarantees for celebrities, and to attract more of consumers' attention, companies employ celebrity look-alikes in their commercials, and celebrities bring suits against those companies for the infringement of right of publicity. Several court decisions admitted celebrities' clams without express statutory provisions granting right of publicity, which, together with the necessity to protect right of publicity, initiated the legislative action for inserting provisions for right of publicity into Korea Copyright Act. This article argues that such a property approach for the protection of publicity does not fit for the current situation of high information cost of legislation. Instead, this article argues for a liability approach, which is taken by section 43(a) of the Lanham Act of the U.S., which makes liable the use of publicity which results in likelihood of confusion. However, this article explains why the U.S. approach is not suitable for Korean situation, and proposes an improper enrichment approach' for the protection of publicity.