Hi All, Interesting thread. Here's my two cents, which is general discussion based on my unresearched understanding, NOT legal advice, with at least a few errors: I think the confusion here is that the legal basis for control of a celebrity image is not copyright law. It is the right to publicity, which comes from the privacy area of tort law (and sometimes a little bit of trademark law, but not here). Under the law, one's image can be a property right and so can survive death and be managed by an estate. Since suing people, or threatening to do so, based on this right is used to get people to pay for licenses to an image, it often intersects with copyright law in ways that are not clear to anyone. Anyone who says this type of right is settled and clear probably has a stake in one side or the other, usually the commercial licensing side. Right of publicity is a matter of state law (unlike copyright, which is federal law), exists in about half the states, and is most developed as you might expect, in CA and NY, where media law has had to evolve with the entertainment business' needs. This is also true of IN law, which according to CMG's Mr. Roesler on his website, is largely due to his own lobbying efforts. CA and IN have expanded the postmortem right of publicity. Here's a short, relevant article: http://www.metrocorpcounsel.com/current.php?artType=view&artMonth=September&artYear=2008&EntryNo=4209 Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, as CMG did a few years ago in a case over Marilyn Monroe's image. Last month, Woody Allen won against American Apparel on a right of publicity claim. If you're interested in the topic, I recommend Rebecca Tushnet's blog, which has a "right to publicity" category. The underlying questions are -- should a celebrity's estate have control over their image? One the one hand, it provides a stable source of stewardship for their legacy and prevents potential dilution. On the other, this effectively locks up a public image from later use, by making living artists who would like to use the image have to pay licensing fees, which they often can't afford, or worry about being sued. Trademark is a different issue, derived from the need to indicate that commercial goods come from a single, consistent source. I'm pretty sure Twain tried to tm his name and failed in court (this is somewhere in Loren Glass' book "Authors, Inc."). So, if someone wanted to sell Mark Twain brand white suits, that could be a potential tm, but then they would probably be sued by CMG, who would want a licensing fee. Returning to the email that started this thread, I'll spare my opinions, except to say that if someone wants to write or film something original that includes MT's image and chooses not to because they are afraid of being sued, or can't afford the license, then I think we're all the poorer for it, Alex