<
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/17/who-owns-einstein-the-battle-for-the-worlds-most-famous-face>
"In July 2003, the physicist and Pulitzer-prize-nominated author Dr Tony
Rothman received an email from his editor bearing unwelcome news. Rothman’s new
book was weeks from publication. An affable debunking of widely misunderstood
stories from the history of science, the title,
Everything’s Relative, was a
playful nod to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Rothman had asked his
publisher, Wiley, to put a picture of history’s most famous scientist on the
cover.
“An issue just came up,” the email read. Rothman’s editor had been warned that
Einstein’s estate is “extremely aggressive and litigious”. Unless the publisher
paid a hefty fee to use the image of Einstein, the editor explained, they could
be sued. Rothman was dismayed. “I think this is ridiculous,” he replied via
email. “If the estate went after everybody who used [Einstein’s image], they’d
have no time on their hands for anything else. Are you sure they even own it?”
Rothman’s editor was unwilling to investigate the legal technicalities. It was
not the first time the publisher had encountered hostile heirs, he said,
referring darkly to “the slavering jackals” who run the literary estate of one
iconic 20th-century American writer.
Albert Einstein died in 1955. In article 13 of his last will and testament, he
pledged that his “manuscripts, copyrights, publication rights, royalties … and
all other literary property” would, upon the deaths of his secretary, Helen
Dukas, and stepdaughter, Margot Einstein, pass to the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, an institution that Einstein cofounded in 1918. Einstein made no
mention in his will about the use of his name or likeness on books, products or
advertisements. Today, these are known as publicity rights, but at the time
Einstein was writing his will, no such legal concept existed. When the Hebrew
University took control of Einstein’s estate in 1982, however, publicity rights
had become a fierce legal battleground, worth millions of dollars each year."
Via Garry Knight, who wrote "An interesting long read about the use of
Einstein’s likeness."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
