Introduction

The development of the right of privacy in the United States has been profoundly influenced and shaped by academic commentators, perhaps more than any other comparable body of law. It is difficult to determine the place that the problem of appropriation of personality occupies in relation to a general right of privacy without an awareness of the dominant competing conceptions, discussed below. The central problem which emerges lies in reconciling economic and dignitary aspects of personality within a cause of action that developed primarily to protect dignitary rather than economic interests. This conflict can be seen in the subsequent development of the right of publicity in the United States. This emerged as a separate and distinct right from the right of privacy due to the difficulties in reconciling the notion of a right to privacy with the need to protect the essentially economic interests that a (usually famous) person might have in his own image.

Although there are interesting developments in the law of privacy elsewhere, particularly in Canada, a detailed analysis of the Canadian authorities contributes relatively little to an understanding of the relationship between the concept of privacy and the problem of appropriation of personality. By the same token, there is no significant divergence between the law of privacy in England and that in Australia which merits attention and, thus, no important points of contrast between the two systems require elucidation. This chapter therefore focuses on the United States.