Needless to say, inheritance stories usually go badly, people go to war for money and the more there are, the longer and more painful the war can be, like the 100 year war at the base c was because of an inheritance. In this order of idea, some beneficiaries have really disrespected the memory of the personality whose rights they inherited by going against its principles or its wishes. Yeah, because there are fine specimens of assholes in our world you will see.
1. The Frida Kahlo Foundation which partners with the fast-fashion brand of hell Shein
If you don’t know this brand, check out the evidence that Shein is the worst invention in history: it exploits its workers, copies models from other brands and does not reveal anything about its production methods. So when some of Frida Kahlo’s heirs agreed to receive money to do a collaboration with clothes inspired by the artist’s works, it kinda screwed up the mess. The descendants of the painter have been fighting for years against the famous foundation eager for money which had already done the trick with the brand. Puma for a series of clothes or even had a Barbie made with the effigy of the painter with the brand Mattel.
2. Yoko Ono who spun the image of John Lennon to appear in a car ad
What better proof can you give that you really have no race than using the image of a dead person to sell a product? I don’t see many worse ones. But it has happened many times in history and our first example here is that of Yoko Ono, wife of John Lennon who agreed to spin the image of her late husband to the brand. Citroën for him to praise the merits of a car he has never even known. Inevitably the advertising had caused a stir and posed a moral question: can we make the dead speak to sell cars? No. Obviously.
3. Kafka’s friend who did not respect his choice at all
Kafka was known to be a hard-on-himself artist and regularly despised what he had just written and his most famous work, Metamorphosis, is no exception to the rule. Kafka thought it really sucked, he even asked his publisher friend Max Brod to burn all that had not yet been published among the thousands of unfinished pages, specifying that no one should read them. All this while he was on his deathbed. So yes, that’s how unfinished novels, including The castlecould then be read by all but at the base it had been rather clear.
4. The publisher Dupuis who launched the production of a volume by Gaston Lagaffe after the death of Franquin
Continuing to write comics of a character created by an author after his death is quite common. But the author Franquin had repeated several times during his life that no one but him should draw an adventure of Gaston Lagaffe, which his daughter tries to enforce with the publisher Dupuis who launched the production of a new volume. For the moment the work has been stopped by the publisher following pressure from the descendant and her lawyer. It’s still the least you can do to respect what a person said and repeated before he died, especially when the only goal is to make money.
5. Alfred Hitchcock used for a car ad
You thought that Citroën had learned the lesson with the episode of John Lennon? No, clearly not. In wanting to promote a model of its DS called “Serie Noire”, the brand used the image of the late Alfred Hitchcock to sell its product. Since the director was known for making black films, it obviously stuck to the colors of the car and we therefore used his image without his consent to represent the model. He probably rolled over in his grave to fart in the face of the guy who came up with this idea, once and for all stop using dead people to sell stuff.
6. Beyoncé and Jay-Z who did a commercial for “Tiffany” with a painting by Basquiat
The jewelry brand Tiffany made some noise when she released an advertisement for her products with the couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Why ? Because in this advertisement we saw a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat never before represented that the brand had bought in the 80s. Ok, the painting belongs to the company, but can we really use this one for to reveal it in an advertising spot which is just used to sell jewels while knowing that Basquiat was resolutely anti-conformist and was not necessarily a representative of capitalism? It’s a bit of a philosophy baccalaureate subject, I’ll let you think about it.
7. The photographer who decided to sell his never-before-seen photos of Heath Ledger as NFTs
A professional photographer saw an opportunity to line his pockets when NFTs emerged and virtual stuff was bought super expensive. He had photographed actor Heath Ledger some time before his death at a shoot and hadn’t been able to sell his shots, so he figured making money off someone dead was a genius idea and he decided to sell them as NFTs. Someone of very good this type moreover, I am persuaded of it.
8. The late artist whose works were NFT’d by thieves
So there it’s not even the rights holders who did shit but quite simply people who stole works since when the artist Qing Han died people clearly took advantage of it. The young woman had known the celebrity on the internet by quickly gaining more than 2.5 million followers on the internet thanks to her creations. After his death, people thought there was money to be made by turning some of his illustrations into NFTs to sell. To make money on the back of a deceased artist by reselling his works on which we have no rights is a nice asshole move.