## Facts

- Glenn Gould, a well-known concert pianist, consented in 1956 to interviews and extensive photography by journalist-photographer Jock Carroll for a magazine feature.
- Carroll took approximately 400 photographs and created notes and recordings from conversations with Gould; a magazine article was published using some of this material.
- Carroll retained the photographs, tapes, and notes.
- Gould died in 1982.
- In 1995, Stoddart Publishing released a Carroll-authored book about Gould that used selected 1956 photographs, captions, and narrative text based on Carroll’s notes and recollections.
- Gould’s estate and an associated rights-holding company sued, alleging the publication was unauthorized and infringed their rights.
- Stoddart moved for summary judgment to dismiss the action.

## Issues

1. Whether publishing a biographical book about a celebrity, using photographs and interview material obtained with the celebrity’s earlier consent, constitutes the tort of appropriation of personality.
2. Whether the tort of appropriation of personality extends beyond endorsement/merchandising uses to expressive works where the celebrity is the subject.
3. Whether the celebrity (or estate) holds copyright or other proprietary interests in the photographs or in the interview conversations and related materials.
4. Whether Gould’s consent for the 1956 magazine project implied contractual limits barring later reuse in a book.

## Decision

- Summary judgment was granted for the defendants, and the action was dismissed.
- The court held the pleaded tort of appropriation of personality was not established on these facts.
- The court found no proprietary basis for the estate to control Carroll’s later use of the photographs and interview-derived material in an expressive, biographical work.
- The court declined to infer any express or implied agreement restricting later publication beyond the original magazine feature.

## Legal Principles

- Appropriation of personality is directed at unauthorized commercial exploitation suggesting endorsement or sponsorship; it does not generally reach expressive works (such as biographies) where the person is the subject of the work.
- Authorship and ownership of copyright ordinarily rest with the creator (e.g., the photographer and writer) absent an agreement assigning rights.
- A person interviewed or photographed does not, by that fact alone, acquire copyright or a proprietary interest in the interviewer’s notes, recordings, photographs, or resulting text.
- Informal interview conversations and information provided for journalistic purposes do not, without more, create enforceable proprietary control for the interview subject over later journalistic or biographical use.
- Consent to be interviewed and photographed, absent proven contractual limits, defeats later attempts to restrain the creator’s reuse of their own expressive materials.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed the estate’s claims at the summary judgment stage, holding that a biographical book using a journalist-photographer’s own photos and interview-derived materials did not amount to actionable appropriation of personality and that, without contractual restrictions, the estate lacked a proprietary basis to control publication.


Gould Estate v. Stoddart Publ'g Co., 30 O.R. (3d) 520 (Ont. Gen. Div. 1996)