Tiger Woods’ swing off the tee may be a graceful bit of beauty to behold, but you’d better think twice before capturing that grace on canvas. In February, ETW Corp., the golfer’s corporate persona, sued Alabama artist Rick Rush over his painting of Woods after he won the 1997 Masters tournament. ETW, which has filed five similar suits against others over the past two years, is demanding that Rush pay damages, destroy all copies of his Woods works and refrain from depicting the golfer in paint again.
In a case with similar legal overtones, Dustin Hoffman walked out of a Los Angeles courtroom earlier this year with a $3 million judgment after suing Los Angeles magazine over a fashion layout that poked fun at his Tootsie cross-dressing role. The magazine’s transgression? Superimposing the star’s head on a model attired in an evening gown. And the Hieroglyphic Formerly Known as Prince last month sued nine Web sites for posting his “likeness” (that being the symbol he claims as his legal name).
