Riva Dietrich, daughter of Marlene, has won the right to recover as yet unquantified damages in respect of unauthorised references to Marlene in Toshiba advertising in Germany.
Topic: Personality rights
Who: Riva Dietrich, Toshiba
When: February 2000
Where: German Federal Supreme Court
What happened:
Riva Dietrich, daughter of Marlene, has won the right to recover as yet unquantified damages in respect of unauthorised references to Marlene in Toshiba advertising in Germany. It featured Marlene in silhouette only and the words "blue" and "angel" in a slogan.
Why this matters:
In the UK there are no sui generis rights of personality as such and certainly none which survive death and can be enforced by the individual's estate. Germany is by no means alone in having much more developed personality rights and this case underlines the need to seek expert advice before making use of any reference to personalities, dead or alive, in commercial communications.
