Not What I Signed Up For: California’s New Autograph Law

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP
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Memorabilia dealers operating in California now have a new certificate-of-authenticity requirement. AB 1570, which went into effect Jan. 1, requires a detailed certificate of authenticity for all autographed items sold by dealers for over $5.

The new law, which did not receive legislative debate, is an expansion of CA Civil Code §1739.7, which had previously just imposed such requirements on sports memorabilia. The new law received support from the Motion Picture Association of America and the California Police Chiefs Association, due to its focusing attention on the largely unregulated entertainment memorabilia market. However, instead of narrowly tailoring the bill to entertainment memorabilia, the author, now-former Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang, merely removed the word “sports” from §1739.7, potentially bringing all nonsports autographs, not just entertainment-related ones, within its purview.

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