## Facts

- Hugo Zacchini was a professional entertainer who performed a 15-second “human cannonball” act at a county fair in Ohio.
- A television station’s reporter recorded Zacchini’s entire performance without his consent.
- The station broadcast the complete act on a nightly news program with favorable commentary.
- Zacchini sued under state law, alleging unlawful appropriation and commercialization of his performance.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for the broadcaster.
- The intermediate appellate court reversed, concluding the complaint stated actionable claims and that the press was not privileged to air the entire act without compensation.
- The state supreme court recognized a state-law “right of publicity” claim but held the broadcast constitutionally privileged under the First and Fourteenth Amendments absent intent to injure or nonprivileged purpose.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted review and determined the judgment rested on federal constitutional grounds rather than an adequate and independent state ground.

## Issues

1. Whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments immunize a broadcaster from state-law damages liability for televising a performer’s entire act without consent.
2. Whether a state may require compensation for such a broadcast consistent with constitutional protections for news reporting.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the state supreme court.
- The Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments do not immunize the news media when they broadcast a performer’s entire act without consent.
- The Court distinguished reputation- and feelings-based privacy torts (such as false light) from the right of publicity, which protects the economic value of a performance.
- The Court reasoned that broadcasting the entire act threatened the performance’s economic value by substituting for paid attendance and impairing the performer’s ability to earn a living.
- The Court analogized the right of publicity to patent and copyright incentives: protecting the performer’s ability to reap economic rewards encourages creation of performances of public interest.
- The Court concluded that permitting damages for the full appropriation of the act would not deprive the public or the press of newsworthy information so long as the performer’s commercial interest is recognized.
- Dissents argued that the decision risked substantial liability for ordinary news reporting and could chill coverage of matters of public interest.

## Legal Principles

- The First Amendment does not categorically bar state-law right-of-publicity liability when the media appropriates and broadcasts a performer’s entire act without consent.
- The right of publicity protects a proprietary, economic interest in the commercial value of a performance, not reputational or emotional interests typical of defamation or false light.
- A state may require compensation for broadcasting an entire performance, similar in function to rules preventing uncompensated copying of protected expressive works.
- Constitutional protection for reporting about newsworthy events does not necessarily extend to reproducing the event itself in full where doing so functions as a substitute for the performance’s commercial exploitation.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a broadcaster’s complete airing of an entertainer’s act may support state right-of-publicity damages, and that requiring compensation for that full appropriation is consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments.


Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broad. Co., 433 U.S. 562 (1977)