December 15, 2005

Family, caregivers battle over Parks estate

When the Mays Printing Co. ran off 10,000 copies of the glossy four-color obituary programs from Rosa Parks\' funeral, demand for them was phenomenal. At $10 apiece, they sold out in three days following the November ceremony. But to Susan McCauley and other relatives of Parks, the sale cheapened the name of the quiet, unassuming woman whose act of defiance 50 years ago on a Montgomery , Ala. , bus altered American history. \"We just don\'t think our aunt would have wanted it this way,\" said McCauley, who grew up near Parks in Detroit and now lives in suburban Atlanta . Jessica Litman, who teaches intellectual property and copyright courses at Detroit \'s Wayne State University Law School , said Parks\' name has little value by itself. But with an aggressive enforcement campaign to get license fees for its use, it could be valuable. \"Surely people will be interested in making motion pictures, biographies, documentaries about her,\" Litman said. \"If someone could claim to own either that right, or the right to pictures of her, I can imagine that going for a tidy sum.\"

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