Audrey Hepburn has come back to life to flog chocolate. She’s not the first posthumous saleswoman, reports Simon Usborne
...the image rights and posthumous fortunes of the departed can lay legal and ethical minefields for brands, and raise the morbid question: who owns dead people?
Last year, a Los Angeles judge ruled it was legal for General Motors to use the image of Albert Einstein’s face planted on top of the rippling torso of a model bearing an e=mc² tattoo. The scientist’s estate had sued but lost because, the judge said, the right of expression trumped an estate’s right to control an image more than 50 years after a death.
Forbes, meanwhile, keeps a dead-star rich list: Elizabeth Taylor was chief among 13 names last year who had earned a combined £350m during the previous 12 months.
