zlacker

That example isn't really pertinent, because in the case of the Simpsons it's fairly certain that the actors and actresses sign away the rights to their likeness to the company, otherwise there'd be major issues if one ever quit, became unable to work, just wanted a bunch of money, or whatever. There's probably some poor analogy with how if you write software, your company [generally] owns it.

For something more general look at Midler vs Ford [1], and lots of other similar cases. Ford wanted to use get Midler to sing some of her songs (that Ford owned the copyright to) for a commercial. She refused, so they hired an impersonator. They never stated it was Midler in the commercial, but nonetheless were sued and lost for abuse of 'rights of personality' even for content they owned the copyright to! Uncopyrightable characteristics highly associated with a person are still legally protected. Similar stuff with fight refs. Various trademark lines like 'Let's get it on!' or 'Let's get readddy to rumble.' are literally trademarked, but it's probably not even strictly necessary since it would be implicitly protected by rights of personality.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

>>somena+(OP)
I know it’s pendantic, but Ford did not own the copyright to either the original Bette Midler performance recording nor the lyrics/melody of the song. The marketing company that prepared the ‘Yuppie Campaign’ for Ford did negotiate a license for the lyrics/melody from the copyright holder. It doesn’t make a substantial difference, but commenters have been using wide ranging analogies in this thread and I wanted to make sure nobody jumped on a flawed foundation when arguing about the precedent case.