The House passed a bill Wednesday that would strengthen an individual's rights to his own image and prohibit the unauthorized commercial use of someone's voice, signature or likeness for financial gain.
Senate Bill 79, known as the Personal Rights Protection Act, passed in the House 80-6, two weeks after it sailed through the Senate on a 32-0 vote.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, began after Woods was approached by family members of legendary Arkansas football coach Frank Broyles, who said they were concerned about people using Broyles' likeness on merchandise and goods that were not approved by the family.
SB79 would expand protections of personal rights and prohibit a commercial enterprise from using a person, celebrity or otherwise, for publicity without permission from that person or the person's estate.
A co-sponsor, Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, said there are 27 states with some sort of "right to publicity" law on the books and that a person has a right to the image, public or not, that he has cultivated.
"As it stands today, someone can profit off the use of your image or likeness," Leding said. "Today I could go and put Rep. [Jon] Eubanks' face on a shirt and sell it, and I think we can all agree any such shirt would sell like hotcakes, and I should not be able to profit off his face, handsome as it is."
Rep. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, argued against the bill, saying that similar protections are already vested in common law and that the bill goes too far.
The bill does have a "Fair Use" section, which gives exceptions to the commercial use of a likeness or image for newspapers, magazines, plays and other news-related or creative outlets.
Metro on 03/19/2015