By admin 
The client of the lawyer practicing image rights can be a celebrity or a complete stranger since everyone has an exclusive right to their image. However, depending on the profile of the victim, the assessment of damages may vary and the lawyer will have to take this into account.
The profile of the victim of an attack on image
The client of the image rights lawyer can be a media personality or a complete stranger. The courts regularly state that any person ” has an exclusive right over his image, an attribute of his personality, and over the use made of it, which allows him to oppose its dissemination without his authorization .”
The image rights lawyer knows, however, that the difference in treatment is significant in the assessment of the damage and therefore the amount of damages. Thus, the ordinary person, who has never displayed his image in any publication, will be able to demonstrate greater damage than a regular media personality who has himself traded in his image in the past. And the professional model, who makes a living from the sale of his image, will be able to demonstrate real financial damage, quantified, for the harm caused to him by unauthorized exploitation.
Choosing the right legal basis
Contrary to a widespread idea, even sometimes among lawyers, the right to one’s image is not part of intellectual property law. For example, a model has no right to claim royalties (proportional remuneration) on the sale of photographs of her image if this has not been provided for contractually.
If the photographer can claim copyright on his photographs, the subject of these photographs only has a right to the image. Thus, the lawyer will not invoke the provisions of the Intellectual Property Code to defend the victim of an attack on his image but only those of the Civil Code or the Penal Code.
Similarly, the right to one’s image is not part of press law in the strict sense and is therefore not governed by the law of 29 July 1881 on freedom of expression. Violations of one’s image therefore do not follow the very strict regime established by this law for press offences such as defamation and insults. However, an image may be considered defamatory or insulting if it harms the honour or reputation of the subject, for example through editing. In this very specific case, the lawyer must act exclusively according to the rules of press law, therefore in particular within three months of publication.
Finally, the right to one’s image is not the same as the right to privacy. Even if judges base the protection of the right to one’s image on Article 9 of the Civil Code, this is a different infringement that may be foreign to any notion of privacy.
The offence of illegal capture of an image
The image rights lawyer will be a criminal lawyer if necessary in the most serious cases when it involves an illicit capture of the image which, this time, infringes on privacy. Article 226-1 of the Penal Code provides that ” The act, by any means whatsoever, of voluntarily infringing on the privacy of the private life of another (…) by fixing, recording or transmitting, without the consent of the latter, the image of a person in a private place is punishable by one year of imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros”.
For example, we remember the complaint filed by Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton following the publication in the pages of the magazine “Closer” of nude photographs of the princess on her balcony.
The image rights lawyer must therefore choose the right legal basis and take into consideration the profile of his client in order to defend him as best as possible.