Publicity Rights and Integrated IP Strategy
Economic Research Working Paper No.89
Author: Alexander Cuntz
Author: Brent Lutes
Author: Matthias Sahli
Publication year: 2025
License: 
DOI: English
Rights of publicity” provide a degree of control over one’s name, image, and likeness (NILs), and can have significant commercial value, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence and digital replicas. Although publicity rights have recently received substantial media and legislative attention, they have so far escaped the attention of economists. This article remedies that with the first empirical examination of publicity rights, using asynchronous changes in U.S. state laws to explore potentially welfare-improving economic incentives and the interaction of NIL protections with other intellectual property rights, thus laying the foundation for a new line of economic inquiry.
