einfeld. It would be no defense thateveryone knows the new actor is not Wayne Knight; no one,after all, thinks the robots here or in White were, in fact,Wendt, Ratzenberger or White. So long as the casting directorcomes up with a new Newman who reminds the public of theold Newman (i.e. Knight), Knight has a right-of-publicityclaim that will at least survive summary judgment. Under theunbounded right of publicity announced in White , copyrightholders will seldom be able to avoid trial when sued forinfringement of the right to publicity. Remember Vanna:Even though the robot looked nothing like her, a jury awardedher $400,000. See Vanna White Wins Suit, Wall St. J., Jan.24, 1994, at B2.6_________________________________________________________________6 To avoid going to trial in such a situation, producers will have to castnew actors who look and sound very different from the old ones. ASeinfeld spin-off thus ends up in a bizarro world where a skinny Newmansits down to coffee with a svelte George, a stocky Kramer, a fat Jerry anda lanky blonde Elaine. Not only is goodwill associated with the old showlost, the artistic freedom of the screenwriters and producers is severelycramped. 14906IIIThe panel's refusal to recognize copyright preemption putsus in conflict with the Seventh Circuit in Baltimore Orioles,Inc. v. Major League Baseball Players Ass'n , 805 F.2d 663(7th Cir. 1986). Baltimore Orioles held that the baseball clubs--not the players--own the rights to baseball telecasts undercopyright law, and the players can't use their state law rightof publicity to veto the telecast of their performance. This wasso even though the telecast (obviously) used the players' iden-tities and likenesses.The Seventh Circuit acknowledged that the state law rightof publicity gave the players a property interest in their actualperformances, see Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard BroadcastingCo., 433 U.S. 562 (1977), but held that this...
