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In The News–Ty Warner Retires ‘Bama Babies’
© Cheryl Hodgson 2009 | Posted on February 4, 2009
A special Contribution from Arthur Javier, Esq., Special Counsel to HLG
Yesterday, Ty Warner, the maker of BEANIE BABIES, retired its “Marvelous Malia” and “Sweet Sasha” dolls. The announcement came weeks after Michelle Obama expressed concerns over the dolls, but only days after White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki announced the development of a new policy to “protect the presidential image while being careful not to squelch the overwhelming enthusiasm the public has for the president.”
For weeks, the company had argued that the dolls were not modeled after the Obama daughters, and that there was no similarity beyond the identical first names. It seemed that the White House and Ty Warner were destined for a date in court until the toymaker’s announcement yesterday that it was retiring the controversial dolls “in deference to the wishes of the first family.”
If the parties had made it to a courtroom, a judge might have treated us to an intriguing decision on the First Amendment, the Right of Publicity and the Right to Privacy regarding the First Family. Are the children of the President “public figures?” Are the lives of the children of the President of such interest to public commentary that we can consider the purely commercial endeavor of branding their names onto goods “speech?” Like anyother celebritiy who can legally license and control use of ones name image and likeness for commercial purposes, why would the children of a President be treated differently?
The President is undoubtedly a public figure; the Constitution defines the Executive as a diplomat, an ambassador and a figurehead. However, the First Family has no official duties and receives no pay, their activities are not essential to the function of the Executive Branch or of government as a whole, and they are free to decide how active they will be in the public forum.
And yet, we live in a culture of fame where Perez Hilton can doodle on a picture of Sasha and Malia to create First Amendment fair use.
Today, if you make the public curious, you are famous. And if you are famous, you are a public figure. If the coffee cup capitalists on Canal Street and the T-shirt traffickers on Telegraph Avenue can sell their Barack Obama tchotchkes, why can’t Ty Warner sell a few dolls bearing the name of the daughters Obama?
Technorati Tags: Bama Babies, Beanie Babies, first amendment, Marvelous Malia, Michelle Obama, pubilic figures, right of privacy, right of publicity, Ty Warner
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