## Facts

- Haelan Laboratories, a chewing-gum seller, used professional baseball players’ photographs on trading cards packaged with its gum.
- Haelan entered written agreements with multiple ballplayers granting Haelan, for a stated term (sometimes with an extension option), the exclusive right to use each player’s photograph in connection with Haelan’s gum sales, and requiring the player not to grant similar rights to other gum makers during that term.
- Topps Chewing Gum, a competitor, obtained contracts authorizing it to use the same players’ photographs in connection with Topps’s gum during overlapping periods, sometimes through intermediaries that later assigned contracts to Topps.
- Haelan alleged Topps knew of Haelan’s exclusivity agreements, deliberately induced players to sign competing authorizations, and then used the players’ images during Haelan’s contracted term.
- Topps argued Haelan acquired no enforceable interest because any consent from the player was merely a non-assignable release from liability under New York’s statutory privacy provisions.

## Issues

1. Whether the commercial value of a person’s photograph/likeness includes a distinct, transferable “right of publicity” beyond a personal, non-assignable statutory privacy right.
2. Whether an exclusive licensee/assignee of that publicity interest may sue a competitor that knowingly induces conflicting authorizations and uses the photographs during the exclusivity term.
3. Whether dismissal was improper where the trial court treated the player contracts as creating no enforceable interest against third parties.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit reversed the dismissal in relevant part and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that, apart from statutory privacy, a person has a right in the publicity value of their photograph that can be transferred and exclusively licensed.
- The court concluded that Haelan’s exclusive photo-use contracts could create enforceable rights against third parties, not merely a waiver of the player’s privacy claim.
- The court indicated that Topps’s knowing inducement of conflicting agreements and use of photographs during Haelan’s exclusive term could support liability, but factual questions remained as to which contracts were valid and what conduct occurred within covered periods.

## Legal Principles

- A “right of publicity” exists as a protectable interest in the commercial value of a person’s photograph or likeness, distinct from statutory privacy protections.
- The right of publicity is transferable and may be exclusively licensed; the grantee may seek damages for unauthorized commercial use infringing that exclusive grant.
- New York’s statutory privacy right addresses personal injury from unauthorized use; the right of publicity protects proprietary commercial value and is not limited to a non-assignable personal claim.
- A third party’s knowing inducement of a breach of an exclusivity agreement, coupled with use inconsistent with the exclusive grant, may be actionable; contract validity, scope, and timing are fact-dependent and may require remand findings.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit recognized an assignable, exclusively licensable right of publicity in the commercial use of a person’s photograph and held that an exclusive licensee could pursue claims where a competitor knowingly procured overlapping authorizations and used the images during the exclusivity term, requiring remand to determine contract coverage and liability for specific players and periods.


Haelan Lab’ys, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 202 F.2d 866 (2d Cir. 1953), cert. denied, 346 U.S. 816 (1953)