Buzz Aldrin Sues Topps for Use of Likeness

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is suing the Topps trading card company in federal court in Los Angeles for the use of his likeness after they used what is arguably him inside a space suit doing the first walk on the moon.

Aldrin, a very private man since his launch to fame, has been very protective of his likeness and has fought to protect others from profiting or exploiting him. What's worth noting here is the fact that you can't actually see Aldrin in the photo on the Topps Heritage box, but you can see the image of a suited man (obvious to all as Aldrin) on the moon.

For a long time it has been said that if you can't see a persons face you don't need a release, and there are numerous court cases that point out the fallacy of that argument. So, the point remains - get a release wherever you can.

If you'd like to know more, the Washington Post has more here.

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R.I.P. PicApp - We Told You So

Back in August of 2009, with great fanfare, PicScout announced PicApp, and we took a critical (and dim) view of it, as we wrote about here - Silly Rabbit - PicApp's Got Problems (8/19/2009). The concept was - free photos for your non-commercial blog/etc, and we'll intersperse some ads among or overtop of the images, and make money that way.

We said it was a bad design then, and, more importantly, we said it made no business sense then, and on their blog here (12/23/2010)

"...the demand was not sufficient to commercially justify this as our core business model, which is why we have decided to terminate the Picapp images search....".

Right. Because it was poorly designed, made no business sense, and was also likely competing with the sources of the images (Getty/et al), and they didn't like it either. Paul Melcher does a fine job of taking a critical look at PicApp here - so I won't rehash what he wrote, other than to say "we told you so."

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