Hi folks -- this is Leon, the author of the Globe story. Steven emailed me to say you guys were discussing the issue and asked me to jump in.

Here's an interesting wrinkle I didn't get to address in the piece: if you inherit the persona of someone very famous, you're responsible for paying taxes on the value of that asset, regardless of whether you make any money off of it. This means that in some cases, a family will be forced to commercialize the persona of the deceased even if they don't want to -- simply because they'd need the money in order to pay the taxes.

Consequently, the right of publicity laws could lead to people's images being used to promote products even though their families would rather just leave them alone.

Not sure how much I can add to this great discussion but I'm here, if you want to ask me something about my reporting!

L