I had an odd dream last night - I found a “lost” film by Hitchcock that was really meant to be hidden clues to find his murderer.
Now Hitchcock wasn’t murdered as far as I know, but it made me wonder if I could write a book called Hitchcock’s Lost (or Last?) Movie. If I did write such a book, what, if any, are the legal implications? Do I need permission from his estate?
Note, I don’t have the ambition nor talent to write such a book, sometimes I just wonder about things.
George Baxt wrote The Alfred Hitchcock Murder Case, starring Hitchcock as a detective. Historic personages are fair game. Living public figures (which is a legal designation that’s hard to pin down, but would cover anybody famous or in politics) are fair game. You can’t libel the dead. You don’t need their permission or their estates’.
However, some real world caveats. California has a special state law that protects the identities of celebrities, even dead celebrities. You’d want to investigate that closely, but Baxt did a long series of “Hollywood” mysteries, each with some movie star as the detective. Even so, the murderers and the evil types who got murdered were always fictional, no matter how many real people he stuffed in. In the real world, it’s not so much that it’s illegal as that publishers don’t like to insult anyone whose relatives can raise a stink.
This is the third or fourth thread on this topic in the past couple of months. Coincidence or is there something that’s triggering them?
Thanks for the information. I don’t know if something is triggering them.
It was a very odd dream - I can’t even imagine what would make me dream about a “lost” Hitchcock movie that held clues to his “murder”.
Nothing that I’ve read or watched recently would remind me of Hitchcock and although I admit his stuff is good, I wouldn’t say I was a “fan.” I don’t even remember when I last saw one of his movies.
But so much of what I dream is like that. I get it when I dream about something I’m reading, but a lot of it comes way out of left field and I wake up wondering where the heck it came from.
Exapno Mapcase is referring to the California Celebrities Rights Act, but there are also publicity rights laws in other states that could potentially limit your use of the names of public figures. Using Alfred Hitchcock as a character in your book would probably be fine, but there can be restrictions on using a celebrity’s name or likeness to sell a product. I’m not sure how or whether this would apply to using a celebrity’s name in the title of your book, though.