# Copyright about using the clone of a celebrity in a Sci-Fi novel?



## Sforza (Apr 21, 2015)

So I read about Scarlett Johansson suing this French author whose novel's protagonist looked so much like her to the point that people confused her with Scarlett, and also her relation with the male protagonist was similar to that of Scatlett with Ryan Gosling I think. My novel is going to be set in the 2100s and I would like one of its characters (not the protagonist) to be the clone of this 1990s real-life supermodel called Georgina Grenville who by that time would be long time dead, the model wasn't really famous but she was fairly relevant. There wouldn't be any similarities between the life of this model and my novel's character, they wouldn't even have similar personalities. Would this be legal?


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## InstituteMan (Apr 21, 2015)

1. If you plan on publishing this, you'll need to talk to a lawyer you are paying for advice. The internet just won't work for this sort of thing.

2. If you are writing for your own pleasure or enjoyment with no plans to publish, go right ahead.

3. If you don't want to pay a lawyer but still want to publish, you'll want to change the character in question to at least make sure she's not all that close to Ms. Grenville.

4. It's not a copyright issue. This is actually something that's called "publicity rights" in the US, although depending upon what you write there's also issues of defamation and slander.

Good luck, and happy writing!


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## Sforza (Apr 21, 2015)

Thanks, yes I'd like to publish it. The character in question is going to be pretty controversial so I'll probably have to avoid mentioning the name of Georgina Grenville, and just describe her and have her say she's the clone of a 90s model, her face isn't that peculiar after all.


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## InstituteMan (Apr 21, 2015)

Sforza said:


> Thanks, yes I'd like to publish it. The character in question is going to be pretty controversial so I'll probably have to avoid mentioning the name of Georgina Grenville, and just describe her and have her say she's the clone of a 90s model, her face isn't that peculiar after all.



I think that would be an excellent question to pay a lawyer to answer. Especially if you are going to replicate any of the real person's characteristics, mannerisms, personality traits (real or perceived), or appearance.


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## Sforza (Apr 21, 2015)

Okay I'll do it eventually then, thanks a lot. I'd like to copy her mannerisms while she's on the catwalk, the novel character is really wicked and she does look evil while she's there

[video=youtube;txtApuzY6E8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txtApuzY6E8[/video]

But in the interview she looks and sounds the exact opposite of her runway persona, which is what I'm interested in.


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## JustRob (Apr 21, 2015)

On a somewhat similar tack, in the forward planning for a later novel where the time travel activities in my first novel had moved from Britain to America I had to decide the full name of the captain of the American time machine. I already had a minor character from the first novel named James with some of his traits defined and wanted to reuse him in the later novel. As a planter of Easter eggs in my writing I worked out associations with clues and events in the long story to choose a name and even drew up an association diagram to confirm my decision, but there was no doubt about it, that his name was going to be James T. Kirk. Well okay, the Kirk bit might have been a coincidence, but that middle initial was just too much. I still can't shake the logic though. Maybe I'll never get around to writing that novel and perhaps I'll just call him James if I do. I suppose I could still call his wife Mrs. Kirk though when he's not around ...


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## Sforza (Apr 21, 2015)

JustRob said:


> On a somewhat similar tack, in the forward planning for a later novel where the time travel activities in my first novel had moved from Britain to America I had to decide the full name of the captain of the American time machine. I already had a minor character from the first novel named James with some of his traits defined and wanted to reuse him in the later novel. As a planter of Easter eggs in my writing I worked out associations with clues and events in the long story to choose a name and even drew up an association diagram to confirm my decision, but there was no doubt about it, that his name was going to be James T. Kirk. Well okay, the Kirk bit might have been a coincidence, but that middle initial was just too much. I still can't shake the logic though. Maybe I'll never get around to writing that novel and perhaps I'll just call him James if I do. I suppose I could still call his wife Mrs. Kirk though when he's not around ...



That's funny, perhaps it was your subconscious making these associations, who knows.


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