Hebrew University v. General Motors

A federal court held that New Jersey's common-law post-mortem right of publicity lasts no more than 50 years, so Albert Einstein's rights had expired before GM ran its 2010 ad.

Albert Einstein has been gone since 1955, yet his face still sells things—watches, posters, and, in 2009, a sport-utility vehicle. When General Motors pasted Einstein’s instantly recognizable head onto a bare, muscled torso in a magazine advertisement for its 2010 GMC Terrain, the institution that claims his publicity rights sued. In Hebrew University of Jerusalem v. General Motors LLC, 903 F. Supp. 2d 932 (C.D. Cal. 2012), Judge A. Howard Matz confronted a question no court had squarely answered: how long does a famous person’s right of publicity survive after death under common law? His answer—no more than fifty years—meant Einstein’s rights had lapsed years before the ad ran, and the case was dismissed.

At a glance

Case: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem v. General Motors LLC, No. CV 10-3790-AHM (JCx); 903 F. Supp. 2d 932 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 15, 2012).
Court: United States District Court, Central District of California; Judge A. Howard Matz.
Posture: Cross-motions on the duration of the post-mortem right of publicity; the court rejected Hebrew University’s bid for an indefinite or 70-year term and limited the right to 50 years, effectively dismissing the claim.
Holding: Under New Jersey common law, a post-mortem right of publicity endures for no more than 50 years after death. Einstein died in 1955, so any such right expired by 2005, before GM’s 2010 advertisement; Hebrew University’s claim was therefore untimely.
Significance: One of the first decisions to fix a definite outer limit on a common-law post-mortem right of publicity, and a leading authority on the duration question.

The advertisement ran in a single issue of People magazine and carried the tagline “Ideas are sexy too.” Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to which Einstein bequeathed his literary estate and personal papers, asserted that it owns and controls his right of publicity and that the unlicensed use violated that right. GM did not principally dispute that it used Einstein’s likeness; instead, the litigation turned on whether any enforceable right still existed.

Whose law, and why New Jersey

Although the suit was filed in California, the court applied New Jersey law. Einstein was domiciled in New Jersey at his death—he had spent his final decades at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton—and under standard choice-of-law analysis, the law of the decedent’s domicile at death governs the existence and duration of a descendible post-mortem right. New Jersey has no right-of-publicity statute, so the court had to predict how the New Jersey Supreme Court would resolve the duration question as a matter of common law.

That predictive posture is important. Judge Matz was not applying a fixed legislative term; he was forecasting what New Jersey’s highest court would do if confronted with the issue. New Jersey courts had recognized a post-mortem right of publicity in earlier cases—including litigation over Nobel-laureate and celebrity personas—but none had defined how long it lasts. The question was genuinely open, which is why the decision carries weight well beyond its facts.

Drawing the fifty-year line

Hebrew University urged the court to hold that the right lasts indefinitely, or at least for 70 years after death by analogy to the post-1978 term of federal copyright. Judge Matz refused both. An indefinite or perpetual right, he reasoned, would clash with the competing interest in free expression and the public’s eventual ability to use a historical figure’s persona. Copyright’s life-plus-70 term, he noted, reflects a distinct statutory bargain that does not automatically transplant into a judge-made publicity right.

Balancing the heirs’ interest in exploiting a persona against the public interest in eventually drawing on it, the court settled on a maximum of 50 years after death. That period, he suggested, is long enough to allow those who controlled a persona in life to benefit and to plan, while ensuring that an icon eventually enters a kind of public domain of personality. Because Einstein died in 1955, even a full 50-year term would have run out in 2005—five years before the GMC Terrain advertisement. The claim was therefore time-barred no matter how the rest of the analysis came out.

A persona that belongs to history

Underlying the holding is a theme that runs through post-mortem publicity law: the tension between treating identity as inheritable property and recognizing that some figures become cultural common property. Einstein is the paradigm case. His name and image function less as a private brand than as a global shorthand for genius. The court was openly attentive to the cost of letting a single institution control that shorthand indefinitely, observing that at some point such a persona “should be freely available to those who seek to appropriate it.”

The decision does not deny that Hebrew University holds valuable interests in Einstein’s legacy, including copyrights in his writings and his name as a trademark in some contexts. Those rights operate under different regimes with their own durations and defenses. What the court rejected was the specific proposition that the right of publicity—the right to control commercial use of identity—could be wielded more than half a century after death.

Open questions

Will New Jersey’s courts adopt 50 years? The figure is a federal court’s prediction of state common law. New Jersey’s legislature or its supreme court could choose a different term, and a later state ruling would supersede this forecast.
How should courts pick a number at all? Hebrew University offers a balancing rationale but not a precise formula. Other states have chosen 20, 70, or 100 years by statute, underscoring that the line is a policy judgment.
Does the analysis reach earlier-dead icons differently? The longer ago a person died, the stronger the public-domain interest. Whether the cutoff should slide with historical distance, or stay fixed at death-plus-50, remains unsettled.

Implications

Domicile at death drives the law. The duration and existence of a post-mortem right turn on where the person was domiciled when they died, so estate planning for a famous client should account for that state’s regime.
There is no default 70-year term. Litigants cannot assume publicity rights track copyright’s life-plus-70. Absent a statute, courts may impose a shorter common-law limit.
Historical figures face a public-domain pull. The more iconic and the longer-dead the persona, the more courts weigh public access against heirs’ control.
Layer your rights. Where publicity rights have lapsed, estates often rely on surviving copyrights and trademarks to police uses—but those tools have their own limits and do not replicate a right of publicity.
Timing is a threshold defense. A defendant can sometimes win on duration alone, without litigating likeness, consent, or damages, when the right has expired before the challenged use.

Frequently asked questions

Did the court say Einstein never had a right of publicity? No. It assumed New Jersey recognizes a descendible, post-mortem right of publicity. The problem was duration: the court held that right lasts no more than 50 years after death, so it had expired in 2005, before General Motors ran the 2010 advertisement.

Why was New Jersey law applied to a case in a California court? Einstein was domiciled in New Jersey when he died in 1955, having lived and worked in Princeton. Under choice-of-law principles, the law of the decedent’s domicile at death generally governs the existence and duration of a post-mortem right of publicity, so New Jersey law controlled even though the suit was filed in the Central District of California.

Does every state limit post-mortem publicity to 50 years? No. Durations vary widely by statute. California protects the right for 70 years after death, Indiana for 100 years, and some states recognize no post-mortem right at all. The 50-year figure was the court’s prediction of New Jersey common law, not a national rule.