CLONES, BONES AND TWILIGHT ZONES: PROTECTING THE DIGITAL PERSONA OF THE QUICK, THE DEAD AND THE IMAGINARY By Joseph J. Beard† ABSTRACT This article explores a developing technology—the creation of digi- tal replicas of individuals, both living and dead, as well as the creation of totally imaginary humans. The article examines the various laws, includ- ing copyright, sui generis, right of publicity and trademark, that may be employed to prevent the creation, duplication and exploitation of digital replicas of individuals as well as to prevent unauthorized alteration of ex- isting images of a person. With respect to totally imaginary digital hu- mans, the article addresses the issue of whether such virtual humans should be treated like real humans or simply as highly sophisticated forms of animated cartoon characters. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 2 II. CLONES: DIGITAL REPLICAS OF LIVING INDIVIDUALS ............................. 7 A. Preventing the Unauthorized Creation or Duplication of a Digital Clone......... 7 1. Physical Appearance.................................................................................. 8 a) The Direct Approach ............................................................................ 8 i) The Technology............................................................................. 8 ii) Copyright..................................................................................... 12 iii) Sui generis Protection.................................................................. 14 iv) Trepass to Chattels ...................................................................... 20 v) Contract Law............................................................................... 20 © 2001 Joseph J. Beard. † Professor of Law, St. John’s University School of Law. S.J.D., Harvard Univer- sity Law School; L.L.M. (Taxation), Boston University School of Law; J.D., Suffolk University Law School; M.B.A., Babson College; B.S. (Electrical Engineering), Tufts University. This article could not have been completed without the excellent support of my research assistants, all now alums of St. John’s University School of Law: Mary Chang and John R. Keville, Class of 1995; Raymond J. Prybylski, Class of 1997; Guiseppe E. Bellavita and Courtney Rockett, Class of 1998; Michael D. Mumola, Class of 1999; Lawrence Chanice and Brian A. Super, Class of 2001. Excellent support was also provided by William H. Manz of the St. John’s University Library, and Secretarial Services, particularly Michele Coccaro and Dina Graganella. Thank you all. vi) Summary ..................................................................................... 22 b) The Indirect Approach........................................................................ 22 i) Bust from Life Mask ................................................................... 23 ii) Bust Based on Reference Photographs........................................ 24 iii) Photogrammetry.......................................................................... 24 iv) Scan of Look-a-Like.................................................................... 26 v) The Law ...................................................................................... 26 2. Voice Synthesis......................................................................................... 27 3. Animation................................................................................................. 30 B. Preventing Unauthorized Performance by a Digital Clone ............................. 34 1. Clones of Professional Performers .......................................................... 34 a) Use of the Clone as a Substitute for the Actor.................................... 34 b) Advertising ......................................................................................... 35 c) Trade Purpose..................................................................................... 35 d) Performance........................................................................................ 38 2. Clones of Public Officials ........................................................................ 42 a) Advertising ......................................................................................... 44 b) Trade Purpose..................................................................................... 44 c) Performance........................................................................................ 45 3. Clones of Other Public Figures ............................................................... 45 C. Digital Alteration of an Actor’s Performances in a Film ................................ 46 1. Digital Plastic Surgery In Post-Production ............................................. 47 2. Bette Davis’ Eyes: The Digital Theft of Body Parts................................ 50 3. “We’re not in Kansas Anymore”: Digital Insertion into New Works ..... 53 4. The Stalin Strategy: Digital Erasures ..................................................... 61 III. BONES: THE DIGITAL RESURRECTION OF DECEASED CELEBRITIES.... 63 A. The Perils of Prediction................................................................................... 63 B. The Post-Mortem Right of Publicity—Alive and Well, Sort of!..................... 66 C. “Dancing in the Dark”—The Astaire Celebrity Image Protection Act............ 70 D. “I Would Rather Be Living in Philadelphia”—Whose Law Governs, Anyway? ......................................................................................................... 77 E. As The Crow Flies: A New Direction in Post-Mortem Film Completion ...... 86 IV. TWILIGHT ZONE: THE IMAGINARY ............................................................... 88 A. It’s a Bird! . It’s a Plane . It’s . an IVH! .............................................. 92 1. The Term of Protection ............................................................................ 95 2. The Aspects of Persona Protected............................................................ 97 3. Criteria for Determining if an Infringement has Taken Place ................. 99 4. The Types of Exploitation Requiring Permission................................... 101 B. Mr. Potato Head Goes Digital: Maximizing IVH Identifiability.................. 103 1. Facial Characteristics............................................................................ 104 2. Voice ...................................................................................................... 105 3. Other Physical Characteristics .............................................................. 106 4. Ancillary Identifiers ............................................................................... 107 V. CONCLUSION...................................................................................................... 109 I. INTRODUCTION A parallel world peopled with virtual humans! An intriguing concept, the stuff of a Twilight Zone or X-Files episode. But, virtual humans are fact, not fiction.1 They are—real. Virtual humans have, in fact, been among us for some two decades now.2 But, to date, they have been no more than audio-visual marionettes controlled by techno-puppeteers. We all recall the kindly woodcarver Geppetto who wished that his wooden puppet, Pinocchio, would someday become a real boy.3 Geppetto’s wish will likely come true early in the twenty-first century. Research around the globe promises virtual humans who can see,4 speak,5 hear,6 touch and be touched,7 exhibit behavior,8 and think9 just as we do. Like Pinocchio, vir- tual humans will shed their “strings”—they will be virtually autonomous. 1. The fact that Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau devoted an episode to an agent suggesting to an actress that she create a digital replica of herself is popular evi- dence of the reality of virtual humans. See Gary Trudeau, Doonesbury (Jun. 28, 1998). 2. Among the early pioneers in this field is Dr. Norman Badler who began his re- search in virtual humans in the 1970s. He is the Director of the Center for Human Model- ing and Simulation, Department of Computer Information Science, University of Penn- sylvania. Professor Ken Perlin is also a pioneer in virtual human technology. He won an Academy Award for technical achievement in 1997 for a digital technique known as “Perlin’s Noise.” Professor Perlin who is a director of the Media Research Laboratory at New York University and Athomas Goldberg, founder and chief technology officer of Improv Technologies were awarded a U.S. patent involving virtual human technology. Teresa Riordan, Animated Characters That Can Make Their Own Decisions and Move More Gracefully, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 10, 2001, at C2. Other academic pioneers are Dr. Daniel Thalman and Dr. Nadia Magnenat Thalman. Commercial pioneers include Jeff Kleiser and Diane Walzac whose special effects company Kleiser Walzac Construction Company owns the registered trademark “Synthespian.” 3. See CARLO COLODI, PINOCCHIO (M.A. Murray trans., 1928). 4. See generally COMPUTER VISION SYSTEMS (Henrik I. Christensen ed., 1999). See also JOSEF PAULI, LEARNING-BASED ROBOT VISION: PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS (2001); Alex (Sandy) Pentland & Tanzeem Choudhury, Face Recognition for Smart En- vironments, 33 COMPUTER No. 2 (2000), at 50. 5. See Sven Wachsmuth et al., Multilevel Integration of Vision and Speech Under- standing Using Bayesian Networks, in COMPUTER VISION SYSTEMS 231 (Henrik I. Chris-