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Notes -
A good part of the philosophical problem with right of publicity is that it has very little impact outside of the commercial protections, and even the commercial protections are only protective to the point where the broader public knows you. It's very much a cut out to protect celebrities and the famous, not defend the little people. California has an unusually broad combination of statutory and common-law protections, but it's still only something that matters to public figures worried about getting used as an advertising or product campaign.
((Other 'moral rights' have similar problems: see VARA for a particularly ugly one.))
But that specific context impacts here, at least if Altman did what people are thinking he did.
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