Last year, California’s then-Assembly Speaker Karen Bass successfully carried legislation (Assembly Bill 524) that, for the first time, exposed media outlets to potentially crushing damage awards if they initially purchase audio, video or still photos they know to have been taken in violation of the state’s 10-year-old anti-paparazzi statute. See “Compounding the Felony: California’s Amended Anti-Paparazzi Statute,” MLRC MediaLawLetter Oct. 2009 at 24.

Though no longer Assembly Speaker (and now a candidate for Congress), Bass is back this year with a dangerous new bill A.B. 2480 that attempts to import only selected elements of that same anti-paparazzi law into California’s 40-year-old right of publicity statute in the guise of protecting minors.

© 2009, Media Law Resource Center, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Douglas E. Mirell is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Loeb & Loeb LLP, where he practices media, entertainment and intellectual property litigation. He can be reached at dmirell@loeb.com or 310.282.2151.