BusinessTN

News broke in October that Elvis Presley was dethroned as Forbes’ highest-earning dead celebrity ($42 million) by former Nirvana front man and grunge-rock martyr Kurt Cobain ($50 million). Cobain overtook Elvis after his widow, Courtney Love, sold her stake in the band’s music catalog. Up to that point, Presley sat atop the six-year-old Forbes list for five years—partly due to Presley’s powerfully popular music, partly due to Elvis Presley Enterprises’ historically powerful legal team.

Celebrity publicity rights in America, and much of the world, have been shaped or defined by Elvis Presley Enterprises.

In 1981, Jack Soden was hired to open Graceland to tourists and guide a plan to grant exclusive manufacture and marketing rights of commercial products to third-party firms.

To stop unaffiliated merchandisers using Presley’s name and likeness, EPE lobbied Tennessee’s legislature to provide control of commercial exploitation of Presley’s persona with the groundbreaking Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984.

Since then, the “Elvis Law” has helped Presley earn more money in death than he ever did in life. Intellectual property rights expert Craig Grossman credits the Elvis Law for firmly establishing celebrity publicity rights.

"It is a decisive case studied in law schools around the world,” says the former in-house counsel for Scour.net, the first peer-to-peer site that downloaded movies. Grossman, now executive director of the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis, notes that the legal groundwork established by EPE and diligence enforcing its rights was unprecedented.

The 6th Circuit court upheld a case brought by EPE after the legislation passed, giving the law teeth on a larger scale than Tennessee.

EPE has been viewed as both vindicator and villain for the historical precedent. The “Elvis police” are not to be trifled with, but of the more famous fights between EPE and Elvis-inspired entrepreneurs, its battles with Presley impersonators will likely show the company’s greatest flexibility. Would-be kings started offering tribute performances before Presley died in 1977. Since then, EPE has tried to limit, restrict and outlaw scores of concerts, competitions and festivals featuring impersonators.

They failed to stop Rick Marino, author of guidebook Be Elvis, from performing. To its credit, EPE pulled back from a threat to cut association with any impersonator-driven festival—essentially cutting them off—once fans found out and complained.

After Elvis heir Lisa Marie turned EPE over to Robert Sillerman and CKX, Sillerman also tried and failed to halt infringing performers. So in November they decided to stop fighting and, well, join them, announcing next August Graceland would host its own Elvis Tribute Artist contest. The grand competition will follow several licensed festivals, which will send top performers on the road to Graceland. EPE declined comment for this article.