Who Should Register?
Anyone who:
- Is an established or aspiring: artist, performer, sportsperson, media presenter, musician, or is hoping to gain wider recognition in their career or profession;
- Is in the public eye by virtue of circumstance or job;
- Is concerned that their image is being used for commercial benefit by others without their consent;
- Is a regular on-line gamer and who invests time and money in their digital avatar;
- Recognizes that the distinction between private and public personality is becoming increasingly blurred. Social media interaction is pervasive and permanent!;
- Wishes to exercise their ‘right to be forgotten’ more effectively;
- Recognizes that as a human being they are special and unique and that their personality is worth protecting.
Why should I register?
- It’s affordable. Registration of Personality lasts for ten years. A typical registration will cost less than the price of a cup of coffee per day. Insuring your car or your personal effects probably costs more than this. Ask yourself – why would you not wish to protect your personality in the best way available for this amount? (Please note that registration of personality is NOT an insurance policy).
- It’s convenient. One simple registration effectively captures all that is unique about you.
- It’s comprehensive. Even basic registration captures all past, present and future distinctive characteristics of your personality. In that respect it’s like having a safety net under your career, which automatically captures anything that later becomes distinctive to you – effective back to the date when you first registered.
- Control. It puts you in control of all aspects of your personality. You can then choose to allow someone you trust to exercise that control on your behalf.
- Flexibility. By choosing to register subsequent discreet ‘images’, you can choose to license different facets of your personality to different parties. There is no limit to how many separate images you may choose to register and deal with – registration thus provides as much granularity as you may require.
What Are The Benefits?
- It puts the world on notice that you exist, and you consider your personality to be valuable. This may reduce unintentional infringements of your image rights by others. (Icondia intends to offer a comprehensive range of ancillary services in the near future).
- Confirmation that you are actively managing and protecting your personality in the best way possible. You have registered your personality on the Image Rights Register in Guernsey because it’s the only place in the world where you can (so far). This may be useful evidence in any type of claim for breach of image rights in any jurisdiction.
- A form of legal protection much broader than the traditional, more limited mechanisms. Sophisticated Image Rights protection has largely been the preserve of the successful and wealthy in the past. This is no longer so.
(For the technically minded: It creates an actual property right: uniquely, registration as a Registered Personality creates an item of property that you are free to cherish, exploit, license or bequeath as you would any other item of property. In legal terms it creates an ‘In Rem’ right, which means you have rights against the world at large).