Of all the novelty facemasks selling across the USA, none have been more popular in the workplace than the “Ed Watson” full-face model. Since June, Spokane manufacturer Compish-Platt has sold over 22 million of the cloth coverings depicting the face of Ed Watson, a New Jersey paint salesman.
Mr. Watson, however, claims he’s never given permission for his face to be used on the masks, and has no idea how the company got ahold of it or why it singled him out.
“Why would they make a mask of me?” he asks. “I’m a guy from Perth Amboy that nobody’s ever heard of.” He says he’s suffering severe stress brought on by seeing so many people who look like him. “And every time I try to make a sales call they tell me I’ve already been there,” he says.
Compish-Platt says it has every right to make and distribute the masks, because Watson’s face has been in the public domain since 1997. “We don’t just make masks of random people,” says the company’s chief legal counsel, Louisa Milliford. “Obviously we do our homework.”
Counters Watson: “I didn’t know a person’s face could even get into the public domain, and I certainly didn’t put mine in it, at least not on purpose.” He has consulted over a dozen attorneys, he says, but all have told him there’s little that can be done.
Even if Watson finds someone to take his case, says Milliford, Compish-Platt is prepared to do battle.
“We’re in the business of giving the public what it wants,” she says. “And at this point in time the public wants Ed Watson.”
