Rosa Parks Name And Likeness Free For Use?

Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development v. Target Corp.

Addressing the balance between privacy rights and matters of public interest, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the plaintiff's complaint, holding that the defendant was shielded by the First Amendment from a lawsuit claiming the retailer violated the publicity rights of civil rights icon Rosa Parks by selling various products that included the plaintiff's picture. Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development v. Target Corp., Case No. 15-10880 (11th Cir., Jan. 4, 2016) (Rosenbaum, J.).

Target Corporation (the defendant), a national retail chain, sold books, a movie and a plaque that included pictures of Rosa Parks, an icon of the civil rights movement who, in 1955, refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a racially segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus. The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development (the