The Washington Post reports that Oprah Winfrey's lawyers are threatening to sue retired school teacher Patrick Crowe for copyright and trademark infringements because he uses her picture in his website running her for president (link here).

At one level, this is silly. But it does raise a serious question. Does she own the copyright on her image? I don't believe I own mine or you, yours. She is a public figure. Paparazzi take and sell photos of celebrities all the time. The lawyers may rather believe they can scare Crowe into taking down the picture, using the threat of big legal costs.

People expose their faces to the public - they publish their faces.

Conversely, those who wear a niqāb could be considered to maintain the privacy of their faces - which remain unpublished.

If you believe people can continue to own what they publish, then everyone owns images of their faces. This is 'own' in the sense of 'retain exclusive control over use'.

If you believe that the public owns what is published, and that the private individual owns what remains private, then only the niqāb wearer could be considered to retain control over images of their face.

Either way, there are matters of truth concerning a face. You should not say that one face is the face of another, or use the image of a face to endorse a product where it may be inferred that the person who's face it is makes such endorsement (unless this is true). A face is a critical aspect of human identity, more comparable to a trademark than an artwork.

As long as the image of a publicly displayed face does not misrepresent, then I don't see any need to restrict reproduction or modification - especially not to grant a monopoly on this as the exclusive privilige of its publisher.

If Oprah Winfrey wished to retain exclusive use over images of her face then she should have worn a niqāb.