[James] Dean has been cast as the star in a new, upcoming movie called Back to Eden.
This feels so wrong to use someone’s likeness withiut their permission after their passing
It’s necromancy.
I don’t see an issue if a living person wants to sign away their rights for this. But, if someone’s already dead, and they were never asked, creating new material with their likeness should be off-limits.
A good use of the tech is to restore and enhance old films. That’s exciting, this other thing is dildos.
After you’re dead there’s no way to get permission. It’s up to whoever holds the rights to your likeness.
Dude died in 1955. Who would even be excited about this, 80 year olds?
This movie is going to flop and hopefully Hollywood will learn the right lesson from it.
Damn, I wonder if people will have to include something in their wills against their likeness being used like this. Imagine your descendents selling the rights to your likeness and it being used to promote views you disagree with, capitalising on the reputation you had before your death.
According to the articles, even putting something specific in your will won’t actually prevent it under the current laws.
Robin Williams did that exact thing with Disney in his Aladdin contract
Well, toys less than actual computerized doppelganger. But all the same. Who’s gonna call out The Mouse?
One remaining spark of light in this, I don’t think an AI or indeed most writers could mimic anything like the frantic ad-libbing he was known and loved for. But I do think he was loved enough that 98% of the populace would see that movie just to see “him” in something again.
There’s already a thing called “likeness rights” that actors have. Presumably the filmmakers in this case made a deal with whoever inherited those rights when James Dean died.
The article has a bit on this:
In general, when a celebrity dies, “rights to publicity” pass on from the celebrity to next of kin, or to the party granted these rights in a will. But Kahn says even a will, which will usually dictate who will benefit financially from the commercial use of the dead celebrity’s image and likeness, holds limited legal weight since “it’s not like a contract because it’s a one-way document”. The power for how that person’s image is used passes to their living executor.
People need to realize that dead people do not have rights, only living people have rights. A dead person can’t go to court.
Thats just a different therm for “we grave robbery and violate peoples rights”
Y’know, in my darkest moments, I’ve taken solace in the fact that suicide would also mean I wouldn’t have to partake in capitalism anymore.
This feels like literal hell. Not even suicide will let you escape.
