terial facts existed that might have caused a reasonablejury to find them sufficiently "like" Wendt and Ratzenbergerto violate S 3344.[3] Wendt and Ratzenberger were not seeking to preventParamount from exhibiting its copyrighted work in the Cheersseries. Their claims were not preempted by the copyright stat-ute so long as they contained elements, such as the invasionof personal rights, that were different in kind from copyrightinfringement. As a general proposition, S 3344 is intended toprotect rights that cannot be copyrighted.[4] California recognizes a common-law right of privacythat includes protection against appropriation for the defen-dant's advantage of the plaintiff's name or likeness. The rightis referred to as the "right of publicity." A common-law causeof action for appropriation of name or likeness may be allegedby pleading (1) the defendant's use of the plaintiff's identity;(2) appropriation of the plaintiff's name or likeness to thedefendant's advantage; (3) lack of consent; and (4) resultinginjury.[5] This common-law right protects against more thanknowing use of a plaintiff's name or likeness for commercialpurposes. It also protects against appropriations of the plain-tiff's identity by other means. [6] While it was true thatWendt's and Ratzenberger's fame arose in large part throughtheir participation in Cheers, an actor does not lose the right 12350to control the commercial exploitation of his or her likenessby portraying a fictional character.[7] Wendt and Ratzenberger raised genuine issues of mate-rial fact concerning the degree to which the figures lookedlike them. Because they did so, they also raised triable issuesas to whether Host sought to appropriate their likenesses forits own advantage, and whether it succeeded. The issue for thejury was whether the defendants were commercially exploit-ing the likeness of the figures to Wendt and Ratzenbergerintending to engender profits.[8] T...
