Are Life Rights Required for a Film about Someone’s Biography?

As a screenwriter or filmmaker, your ideas are bound to come from a variety of different sources. As well as past publications or otherwise copywritten works. In fact, many writers find inspiration following something like reading an interesting blog post. Or finding an Op-Ed piece that strikes their interest in one of their favorite newspapers. These ideas can quickly turn into a plan to produce a documentary or a biography. But film law as it pertains to U.S. Copyright can be complex. And if you’re producing a film about someone’s biography, you might be wondering. Do you need life rights?

In all honesty, the question of life rights for a film is one that comes up quite frequently. If you’re thinking about producing a film about someone’s biography, do you even need life rights or are there some protections in place under fair use?

Over the years we’ve seen biographies, documentaries, and biopics produced on a variety of life stories including When They See Us from 2019. As well as Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018, but the real question is whether or not these projects required life rights?

What are Life Rights?

Before you can possibly understand the acquisition of life rights required for a film about someone’s biography you need to fully understand what life rights are.

To make it simple, life rights represent virtually any thoughts, actions, events, incidents, or experiences that occur as a result of someone’s life. 

Non-Public Information

Say you have interest in sharing any non-public information. Including personal concerns, thoughts, experiences or other details that have happened in an individual’s life.

As part of a film about someone’s biography, there’s a chance that it’ll be legally necessary to obtain life rights. In order to protect yourself from a lawsuit for invasion of privacy or various other potential complaints.

When to Consider Life Rights for a Film about Someone’s Biography

If you’re wondering if life rights are required for a film about someone’s biography, it’s important to first consider the situations in which life rights are most likely to be required.

Life rights acquisition should be considered in a variety of circumstances including:

• When a project is based on an individual’s life story. And contains intimate details regarding the past events of an individual’s life.
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• When a project is based on a previously written story or biography about a person. A license would be necessary in order to reproduce the work.
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• When a project is solely and strictly based on non-fiction facts. Which represent true events that occurred during the course of the life of an individual. And which were previously obtained by a producer thus a subsequent license should be acquired.
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• If there is any sense of confusion or lack of clarity in regards to whether life rights are required and what actions should be taken in order to prevent a lawsuit.

First Amendment Rights

So, are life rights necessary when producing a film about someone’s biography? The short EXPECTED answer is, “YES”! You should acquire life rights if you intend to produce a film about someone’s biography.

But if the biography is based on a past work that is part of public domain, you might not need life rights. However, the law is actually quite clear on the fact that non-commercial speech is under protection by the First Amendment. 

The First Amendment protects our rights and provides certain rights for filmmakers. Under the First Amendment, which protects non-commercial speech, a biography that represents someone’s life story is actually considered non-commercial speech.

As such, there are First Amendment protections in place. Which release the requirement for filmmakers to seek life rights in order to depict a public figure in a film.

In Summation

Since the laws offer protections but interpretations could vary. It’s important for filmmakers to understand how life rights work when it comes to producing a film about someone’s biography.

Before you start, we recommend you reach out to a qualified film crew or an entertainment attorney. To ensure you’ve got the appropriate rights in order to produce a film about someone’s biography.