Resurrects the dead. Their rights. Because fame does not go underground. It protects them from commercial necrophilia, from abuses of their glory. They call it the legacy of the stars. That of the stars of sports, entertainment, science, history. Or rather of the delebrities which stands for dead celebrities. In short, those who are dead and buried, but continue to live thanks to copyright. To the right of image.

«Subscribe to S-Sprint, Emanuela Audisio’s free newsletter»

What do Ingrid Bergman, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley, Malcom X, Lady Diana, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean have in common with so many sports champions from Jack Dempsey to Lou Gehrig, from Wilma Rudolph to Arthur Ashe? That they are represented by the same agency, the Cmg WorldwideIt doesn’t matter if they are no longer among us, they are worth their weight in gold.

Forbes writes: «Being dead doesn’t necessarily mean being unprofitable». Short translation: even when dead you can make profits, some ashes yield, not in the afterlife but in this life, a myth like Elvis still brings in 100 million dollars a year.

Did you know that the French striker Kylian Mbappé (alive, very much alive), just after moving from Paris (PSG) to Real Madrid, has he filed his famous celebration, arms crossed on his chest, with an application and stamp, at the European Union Intellectual Property Office? That gesture is or should be his alone now, protected by copyright. The EU counter officially registered it in 2018 as a private trademark at least until 2027. And while he was at it, Mbappé expanded to protect some of his phrases and statements. Will they be beautiful like m’illumino d’immenso? (Giuseppe Ungaretti), famous like e pur si muove! (Galileo Galilei) or ironic like nessuno è perfetto (from the film Some Like It Hot by Billy Wilder)? You be the judge: “Aren’t you happy? Hat-trick”, said as a provocation to those who criticized him. If you use them on a T-shirt you will have to pay royalties.

He’s not the first one, footballers Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, the Jamaican sprinter, have also done it while they were alive. Usain Bolt with his iconic Lightning Bolt gesture, the basketball player LeBron James with the phrase “Just a kid from Akron,” just a boy from Akron. Even the famous boxing announcer, Michael Bufferhas patented his phrase Let’s get ready to rumble, which has already earned him 400 million. The word ping-pong is protected by copyright (an American game company has it), but table tennis is not. What a difference with the French designer Coco Chanel who, passing by a market where they were selling imitations of her models, complimented the owner of the stall and said: “Whoever copies me admires me.”

Over the next five seasons, Mbappé will earn 40 million a year, excluding bonuses and sponsorship income. That’s 109,000 euros a day, 4,500 euros an hour, and 76 a second. For goodness sake, well-deserved, but is there a need to threaten to sue those who celebrate like him? Protecting image rights is right, and also supporting one’s brand, but if life is going well for me and I want to do somersaults, or rather a double backflip like gymnast Simone Biles who gave her exercise its name, do I have to send a bank transfer? Appropriating an originality is wrong, but so is trying to obtain rights from something that is very common. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

From James Dean you know, his youth stopped burning at 5:59 on Friday, September 30, 1955 on the road to Salinas, California. He was driving a Porsche 550 Spider that he had renamed Little Bastard and that he had bought nine days earlier. He was going 80 miles an hour when at the intersection of 46 and 41 he collided with a Ford Tudor that weighed three times his weight. A little mouse against an elephant. The impact broke his neck, his white T-shirt was soaked in blood, they had a hard time extracting him from the car. He had been gored by the steering wheel. He was 24 years, 7 months, 22 days. His first film as a protagonist, East of Eden, had been in theaters for just five months, the second Rebel Without a Cause was about to be released and he was working on the third, Giant. A clause in his contract prevented him from participating in car races. But he was James Dean and he didn’t care. He had also been rejected from military service. They asked him: how did you do it? “I kissed the doctor”. On TV they were showing an ad of his against high-speed trains where he recommended: “Go slowly, the life you save could be mine”. He had to have his say, but he slipped. He wasn’t the type to plan insurance, he had 33 dollars and 3 cents in his pocket and many bills to pay in the bank.

Mark Roeslerpresident of Cmg, represents about 3,000 famous dead. When the company opened in ’81, there were no rights for the dearly departed: “Anyone could put Dean on a mug, on a T-shirt, on a calendar, Levi’s was doing an advertising campaign with his image.” Roesler didn’t think of building a career in the sector, he had chosen that path only to pay for his law studies, but they called him from Graceland park: in Memphis they were opening to tourists and there was some problem with Colonel Tom Parker, former manager of Presleycould you give some advice? Elvis was his first client, Dean his second. He is good at assessing the media power of stars and the ability of champions to attract money. «They asked me to put the name James Dean on a condom, we preferred not to, and so we also refused to name an amusement park in Japan. It’s not just a question of money, but of not spoiling the memory. Bruce Lee’s daughter approved that Johnnie Walker Blue Label resurrected him for an advertising campaign, but his fans were not happy with the martial arts-whisky association. I also received a request from a great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln’s family, he wanted to know about any rights on coins and 5-dollar bills».

Roesler knows the commercial power of champions, he was the one who quantified the value of OJ Simpson (25 million dollars) in the civil trial for compensation to the families of the victims. He also intervenes in cases of films and merchandising. Among his clients is the boxer James J. Braddockdied in ’74. He was the sixth child of an Irish family that emigrated to America and lived in the seedy neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen. He was a tough guy, so if you broke your hand and the doctor asked you for a thousand dollars for the operation, they would send you back to the ring to break it properly, so they could save on the operation. Braddock was 24 years old: money, girlfriend, future. He fought, won, cashed in. He had put a nice nest egg in the bank, but in ’29 the New York Stock Exchange collapsed and killed his savings. For him it wasn’t just a “Black Thursday”, his life also turned black: he lost 16 fights out of 26, his taxi company went bankrupt, he broke his hand. He announced his retirement and headed for the waterfront. A dockworker for four dollars a day.

Braddock slept with his wife and children in a basement, they had turned off the gas and electricity, no milk. He bent down to ask for the welfare card: 24 dollars a month. He returned to fight because of hunger, and he discovered he was a different boxer, he had learned to survive. If it seems like a story already seen, you are right, it is the film Cinderella Manreleased in 2005, with Russell Crowe. The Cinderella man on June 13, 1935 entered the ring for the heavyweight title against the champion Max Baer, ​​a big favorite. You also know this: Braddock’s desperate America won and immediately returned $367.24 in cash. Enough assistance, it was time to raise our heads and get out of the Great Depression.

The Cmg, which also represents Malcolm Xwon the lawsuit against director Spike Lee who in ’92 with the film dedicated to the black leader had started a sale of commercial products, but the exploitation of the rights belonged to X’s widow, Betty Shabazz, and not to Lee. It’s useless to ask the sugar cube man what he thinks. He is also no longer with us, he died in ’93. Albert Sabina Jew, had fled to America from Poland (then still part of the Russian Empire) to avoid persecution. In the mid-1950s he invented the oral polio vaccine. They advised him to patent it. He refused. “It’s for all the children in the world.” When Mary Poppins sings: “Just a little sugar and the pill goes down” she is referring to Sabin’s vaccine. To the doctor who turned his back on copyright and said: not mine, but ours.

2024-07-14 08:37:24
#Registered #Trademarks #Legacy #Stars #Fame #Doesnt #Underground #Football

Related