Roy Keane is suing bookmaker Paddy Power over the use of his image on a billboard displayed in Dublin ahead of the recent European Championship qualifier against Scotland at the Aviva.
The billboard depicted Roy Keane, Ireland’s assistant manager, as Mel Gibson in ‘Braveheart’, with the tagline: “You may take our points but at least we have our freedom (ya wee pussies)."
This morning it has emerged that Keane has decided to take a lawsuit against Paddy Power, filing a case on Monday July 6.
Tony Williams, media lawyer and partner with Simon McAleese solicitors, joined Ivan Yates on Breakfast today to explain the details of image rights, and how the case could pan out.
Paddy Power, Williams says, are in the habit of push the boundaries with their advertisements, but that someone took a case against them.
“The trouble with cheeky advertisements is eventually someone is going to take issue.”
Paddy Power “are taking the ‘its only a bit of craic’ defence,” Williams believes. “Which is a defence in the court of public opinion but not really in a court of law,” he said.
Image rights are an unclear area of law, with any offence’s severity often tied up in how much a person would typically charge for use of their image, or if improper use of it can adversely affect the individual’s ability to endorse other products.
“Nobody really knows exactly what image rights are,” Williams told Ivan.
“We’ve had cases in the past over this kind of thing – and the general theory is that you’re suggesting the person pictured is endorsing this product and thereby you’re robbing them of the right to endorse other (products),” Williams said.
“Effectively what this (case) is, is all about the commercial exploitation of a well known image.
“A well known celeb who endorses products and gets paid for it ... has value to their image.
With Keane famously private Williams and Yates speculated that he would not be overly enamoured with the idea of a public case, whereas “Paddy Power are the company for whom the mantra ‘no such thing as bad publicity’ could have been invented,” Williams said.
However, the publicity of tussling with “a national icon like Roy Keane” over a long period of time might be a dose of bad publicity too far, Williams speculated.
Listen to the full discussion of the Roy Keane case against Paddy Power below
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