Weatherproof Will Take Down Billboard of Obama in its Jacket
The president of the Weatherproof Garment Company says he will take down a Times Square billboard featuring President Obama wearing his clothier’s Ultra-Tech jacket.
Weatherproof president Freddie Stollmack agreed to take down the billboard in a phone conversation with the White House counsel’s office, Fox News reports, citing Fox News sources. The billboard features an Associated Press photo of Obama wearing the jacket that was taken during the president’s November visit to the Great Wall of China.
The New York Times and the Washington Post both had stories about the controversy.
An AP spokesman told the Times that Weatherproof had paid a licensing fee for the photograph, but notes the agreement requires the licensing party to obtain all the necessary clearances. An Obama administration spokesman said the president did not approve the billboard, citing a long-standing White House policy disapproving the use of the president’s likeness for commercial purposes.
Stollmack told the Post he was a “neophyte” in terms of public relations, a statement that the newspaper views as “setting the standard for understatement for many years to come.” The jacket worn by the president is now the best seller in the product line.
The Times interviewed intellectual property lawyer Kevin Greenberg, a partner at Flaster Greenberg in Philadelphia. He told the Times that “legally, the framework is that it’s very unclear where the First Amendment ends” and where public officials’ right to control their image begins.
Georgetown University law professor Rebecca Tushnet echoed that comment in an e-mail interview with the Post. “The courts simply haven’t addressed what happens when a public figure like Obama … appears in an ad,” she said.
She pointed out that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sued a toy manufacturer for creating a Governator bobblehead doll that carried a large weapon. The suit settled; the bobblehead survived, but the gun was gone.
