Can I legally use a famous celebrity's face in my artwork?

[Develofuche]

I want to create a piece of art that features a well-known celebrity's face, but I'm not sure if I can legally do so without their permission. Would this be considered copyright infringement or a violation of their right to publicity?

[AndyJ]

Provided that you don't copy a particular photograph of the person, unless you took the photograph yourself, then using their likeness should not run into any problems over copyright, because the appearance of a person is not subject to copyright. It is a fact like their name.

Moving to the right of publicity aspect, these laws, which do not apply in the UK, are intended to prevent the use of a person's image for advertising or endorsement purposes. Under UK law, providing the person was sufficiently well known, use of their image without permission for advertising or endorsement purposes might be actionable as passing off. The most well known example of such a case was Irvine v Talksport Radio.

Once again, we have covered this subject several times on the forum, for instance here: viewtopic.php?t=2650