[ashurov]

So, why can they publish it now? His death doesn’t nullify the agreement, does it?

[ggm]

I would think it does, yes. It's personal rights, not concrete assets.

Dead people have no right to privacy in law as I understand it.

Not a lawyer, not in the economies involved in this.

"it depends"

[tiborsaas]

> Dead people have no right to privacy in law as I understand it.

Grim reminder to better control privacy while we are still alive.

[Kinrany]

Was it because of the privacy laws that they needed his agreement in the first place?

It seems he contributed, so I assume otherwise.

[chefkd]

Does that mean dead people have no copyright rights as well? Curious what makes image likeness different than any other asset

[prmoustache]

I don't think a contract still stands when one of the party do not exists anymore.

And dead people don't have rights past what they have decided on inheritance and even this can be sometimes overturned by justice. This is the reason wealthy people sometimes give their wealth to a foundation but if the foundation doesn't find a way to make it sustainable and money runs out it also ends up dissolved regardless of the cause it was bound to serve.

[toast0]

Generally, a party has successors that would benefit from the contract.

But without seeing the contract, we don't really know. Perhaps it only bound the original publisher, and not the author, but some other contract had bound the author to only publish through that publisher, and that publication contract is no longer in force. Who knows, the article doesn't tell us.