CMG Worldwide Inc., which came out on the losing end in the Marilyn Monroe case discussed here last week, is headquartered in Indiana, primarily, one assumes, because of its 100-year-long postmortem right of publicity, and this weekend the Indianapolis Business Journal took a look at the decision. The bottom line:
"[CMG] represents about 250 famous people, most of them dead, including James Dean, Babe Ruth and Buddy Holly. Monroe, one of its highest-grossing clients, has raked in more than $30 million in licensing fees in the last dozen years for everything from TV commercials to T-shirts—with roughly 25 percent of that windfall landing in CMG coffers. But that spigot of cash could slow to a drip if a higher court upholds a ruling early this month by a federal judge in New York, and if a series of similar lawsuits nationwide result in additional setbacks for CMG."