If You Want To Have Sex With Charlie Sheen, You Have To Give Him The Copyrights On Any Photos You Take Of Him

from the wait,-what? dept

As you may have heard, last week actor Charlie Sheen announced that he is HIV positive, which got lots of news coverage. Related to that, In Touch magazine produced the non disclosure agreement (NDA) that it claims "Charlie Sheen had his sexual partners sign when they came to his house." I guess if you're a celebrity known for sleeping around, this is the kind of thing you have your lawyers cook up for you. But what struck me as interesting was that, beyond the basic NDA language, there was some copyright language concerning any images, videos or sound recordings. You can understand why Sheen (and his lawyers) don't want anyone taking pictures of him or even talking about the relationship to book or magazine writers, so they include some bizarre copyright transfer language for the partner to agree to: It's a little difficult to read, so here are the relevant sections:

1.3 No Participation in Books or Articles. Without Your advance express written consent, I will not give or participate in any interviews, write or be a source for, any articles, books, programs, or stories about You or the Related Parties, whether truthful, fictionalized, on the record, or "off the record." If I breach these promises, My copyright in any such unauthorized material shall be automatically and immediately transferred by Me to You as of its creation and in perpetuity, and this Agreement shall constitute a valid transfer of copyright.

1.4 Images and Recordings. Without Your advance express written consent, I will not create any photographs, movies, videos, sound or image recordings or otherwise capture any depictions or likenesses of You, Your family, friends, associates or employees ("Images and Recordings"). If I breach these promises any images and Recordings I create shall be considered Confidential Information, and My copyright in them shall be deemed automatically and immediately transferred by Me to You as of its creation and in perpetuity, and this Agreement shall constitute a valid transfer of copyright. If you expressly direct Me to create any Images and Recordings, they will be Confidential Information in which I have no legal rights or interest whatsoever, including any copyright, trademark, "moral rights," patent, or other similar rights, and I convey, transfer and assign to You all of My right, title and interest (if any) of whatever kind or nature in all Images and Recordings as of their creation and in perpetuity, and this Agreement shall constitute a valid transfer of copyrights.

Of course, the "in perpetuity" is not really accurate, as you can't give up your termination rights, even with a contractual agreement, to take back your copyrights after 35 years, but, really, that's besides the point. I do wonder how valid Section 1.3 is at all. If the partner is interviewed for a book or a magazine article, there likely isn't any copyright for Sheen's partner to transfer in the first place, as nothing is "fixed" by that partner. Furthermore, in most cases, the book or magazine author/publisher would likely have a strong fair use claim if Sheen tried to have those quotes deleted via copyright. If anything, this just seems like a way to make it sound scary to go out and talk to a magazine or book author.

The transfer of copyright in the photos and videos at least seems a bit more legit, if still sketchy. Of course, once again, though, this shows where copyright is being used directly for censorship purposes, entirely divorced from its supposed purpose of providing incentives to create.

Filed Under: charlie sheen, copyright

Charlie Sheen's Ex Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Mentions Her Name On Comedy Central

from the winning,-duh dept

btr1701 alerts us to the news that Charlie Sheen's ex-wife, Brooke Mueller, is supposedly threatening to take legal action against anyone who mentions her at the upcoming Comedy Central Roast of Sheen (um, wait, Charlie Sheen deserves a roast? really?). While she may have a contractual legal leg to stand on concerning certain subjects from Sheen himself, since the report says their divorce agreement includes some sort of promise from Sheen to "never publicly discuss her drug use," I can't see how she has any legal leg to stand on at all concerning anyone else making jokes about her. In fact, just in having this story come out, it seems like she's likely to become an even bigger target for the roasters. It seems like yet another case of "publicity rights" gone mad, where, thanks to ever expanding intellectual property laws and concepts, people seem to think that they can stop anyone from even talking about them if they don't like what's being said.

Filed Under: brooke mueller, charlie sheen, comedy central, publicity rights, roast

Charlie Sheen Reps Claim Publicity Rights To Shut Down Group Critical Of Sheen's Treatment Of Women

from the duh,-losing dept

The insanity that is Charlie Sheen is boiling over into the kind of stuff we follow. Given the massive focus on Sheen and his antics over the past few weeks, a bunch of people who appear to have no relationship with Sheen at all have been rushing to the Trademark Office to secure tradmarks on some of Sheen's popular new catchphrases. I can't really see how most of these could stand, as Sheen would have a pretty strong claim against them, but there are some serious players involved. Hell, even Jimmy Buffet is trying to register "Tiger Blood" for a new cocktail. Yum.

That said, the merchandise group FEA Merchandising, which is a subsidiary of Live Nation, is apparently trying to crack down on competing Sheen merchandise, but is often doing so in questionable ways. For example, it's forced offline a group that was selling "Unfollow Charlie" t-shirts in an attempt to raise money for women's rights, and specifically the group RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network). The person who set up the t-shirts, Kate Durkin, was reasonably horrified at the glorification of Sheen (some might claim that it was really more schadenfreude) during his... antics. So she's selling t-shirts and trying to get people to stop following Sheen on Twitter.

Reasonable enough, but FEA got Zazzle to take down her store. Why? You guessed it: Another questionable publicity rights claim. Durkin is wondering if she's being blocked because her campaign is critical of Sheen. It sounds like FEA is going after all sorts of folks, critical or not, but it still raises serious questions about publicity rights laws (yet again), if they can be used to stifle a protest against someone's actions.

Filed Under: charlie sheen, publicity rights