'You Had Me at 'No capital Gains Tax on a Disposal'': Legal and Theoretical Aspects of Standalone Image Rights

Abstract

This paper considers the provisions of the Guernsey image rights register, which came into being in 2012, alongside the image rights protections available in the EU Member States as revealed through a Commission-funded survey into the image rights of athletes. While it suggests several reasons for the limited popularity of the register and notes that the applicable regimes depend on whether violations are by third parties or by those with whom the performer is currently within a contractual relationship, it highlights the Guernsey scheme's potential benefits to performers, particularly in the field of tax planning, and makes suggestions as to how its relevance to them might be enhanced in the light of the Commission survey data and the applicable UK tax regime. By drawing on literature from masculinity and African-American studies especially, the paper also offers suggestions as to why performer endorsement is potentially so lucrative; but it also highlights some of the industry's negative effects and suggests that, while there is not a particular ‘problem’ of image rights violations within the Member States, discussions about the benefits of standalone image rights need to be informed by an awareness of these wider issues.