California Celebrities Rights Act

The Celebrities Rights Act or Celebrity Rights Act was passed in California in 1985, which enabled a celebrity's personality rights to survive his or her death. Previously, the 1979 Lugosi v. Universal Pictures decision by the California Supreme Court held that Bela Lugosi's personality rights could not pass to his heirs, as a copyright would have. The court ruled that any rights of publicity, and rights to his image, terminated with Lugosi's death.

California Civil Code section 3344 is for the publicity rights of living persons, while Civil Code section 3344.1, known as the Astaire Celebrity Image Protection Act, grants statutory rights to the estate of a "deceased personality", where:

In 1999, the period of protection was extended from fifty years after a person's death to seventy years. Similar laws have been enacted by 12 other states in the United States.

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