Hollywood Reporter article on movie rights and Right of Publicity of criminals, includes Luminary Group’s Jonathan Faber commentary

Interesting article in today’s The Hollywood Reporter.  The article considers the two persons believed to be behind the Boston Marathon bombing, and the possibility of a movie depiction of these events.  I do not think such a project is actually underway; rather, I understand the article simply to be exploring these compelling questions.

The recent film Zero Dark Thirty raises similar, though perhaps not identical issues.  For my contribution to the article, I emphasized that I do not expect that the surviving suspect in custody (Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) could stop a movie from being made about him by using a Right of Publicity argument, due to a combining of reasons involving public interest, newsworthiness, Son of Sam provisions, and statutory exemptions for certain kinds of use that appear in most forms of Right of Publicity legislation.

When production companies seek out life story rights, it is almost always (in my experience) those in which the blessing or involvement of the family is desired and beneficial to the project overall.  There would, of course, be counterpoints, but it is nonetheless a useful starting point in grappling with the question raised by Eriq Gardner in The Hollywood Reporter piece.

Here is a link to the article:  http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/boston-bombing-movie-why-dzhokhar-444026