Yesterday, I posed the following questions: What is identity? As we define the right, should we only protect a person’s authentic identity (name, likeness, voice, etc.), or do we protect that constructed identity? Are Madonna’s many personas as valid as Janet’s one? These questions of authentic and constructed personas are still very much an issue in today’s video culture. Our current great video stars, Lady Gaga and Beyonce, have often played with this question of authenticity versus construction.

In fact, I would argue that Beyonce and Gaga can be seen as “baroque” versions of the authentic Janet and the constructed Madonna. Beyonce heightens the authentic tradition in her videos. For example, in the video “Crazy in Love” she sings, standing next to the man who would become her husband, Jay-Z, about how much she loves him. Like Janet, Beyonce uses her given name. Lady Gaga, very obviously, extends the constructed tradition. In the video for “Bad Romance,” Lady Gaga changes personas fourteen times in one video. Lady Gaga makes us call her Lady Gaga.

Lately, however, Beyonce and Lady Gaga themselves have sought to confuse these boundaries, between the authentic and constructed, through their two videos “Videophone” and “Telephone.” 

Summer is here and, much to my joy, videos are back! The confluence of Lady Gaga, Glee, OK GO, and You-Tube has reminded us of the great art form of the 1980s, the video, a four- to five-minute presentation of a lip-synched musical song in which dance-choreography was more often than not a crucial element. The video had elements of a copyrighted work (under Section 102 of the Copyright Act, it can comfortably be classified as audiovisual work), but more importantly than that, the video served as an extended commercial to prompt the viewer to go out and purchase the artist’s work.

The video, though, at its greatest heights, was used by its more skilled practitioners to build and shape the individual artist’s persona beyond the popularity of any particular song. This often had the effect of strengthening the long-term commercial value of an artist’s work. I think, often, of the careers of Cyndi Lauper and Madonna as demonstrating the importance of this particular principle. Cyndi had the singing and writing chops (“Time After Time,” anyone?), but Madonna used the video art form to its maximum extent, making relevant her persona for over twenty-five years (yes, people, twenty-five years).

Thus, the video also invokes a more neglected sister of copyright, the right of publicity, which broadly protects the commercial value of a person’s identity.