Two weeks ago, Former Astronaut Buzz Aldrin filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against a commercial publisher of educational software, claiming that the publisher had violated his "right of publicity." At issue is the famous "visor shot" (pictured here in the right margin of Aldrin's NASA biography), in which the Apollo lander and fellow Astronaut Neil Armstrong are mirrored in the visor of Aldrin's spacesuit. Aldrin claims that unlicensed commercial uses of this photograph violate his "rights of publicity," a common law and statutory right in California. This presents interesting questions. Does a government employee, acting in his capacity as a government employee, have a private "right of publicity" in a photograph taken by another government employee in the normal course of carrying out his job responsibilities? The photograph in question is in the National Archives and, therefore, in the public domain. Can California's "right of publicity" trump that? I find it hard to believe that the answer could be 'yes.' The case is Aldrin v. Encore Software, Inc., et al., Los Angeles Superior Court, Civil Action BC305356, filed October 31, 2003 (online docket here).

P.S. The printing press picture in the right margin also comes from the National Archives.