Britain's law lords to rule in OK! vs Hello! case

LONDON, May 2 (Reuters) England's top court is due to give a final ruling today in the long-running case between celebrity magazines OK! and Hello! over pictures from the 2000 wedding of stars Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

OK!, which had an exclusive deal with the Hollywood couple to cover their marriage, won a 2003 court case against Hello! after it published unauthorised ''spoiler'' pictures taken by an undercover paparazzo.

But Hello! won an appeal in 2005, and OK! has taken the case to the House of Lords for a final ruling. The law lords are expected to hand down a written judgment today.

Millions of pounds in legal fees are at stake and media lawyers are watching the verdict closely to see whether it helps clarify how far celebrities can control their image and privacy.

When it won the initial case, OK! was awarded damages of one million pounds (2 million dollars), the amount it paid the couple for rights to images from the wedding.

Were OK! to win the case, Hello! is likely to argue that it is tantamount to giving celebrities ''image rights'', allowing them to control what images of them are published, something not recognised in English law.

At the original trial in 2003, Zeta-Jones said she felt violated by the unauthorised pictures published in Hello!, calling them ''sleazy'' and ''unflattering''. The couple did not take part in the House of Lords hearings.

Two cases in 2004 favoured celebrities over the media.

In 2004, the law lords decided supermodel Naomi Campbell's rights were breached when a newspaper ran a story saying, correctly, that Campbell had visited Narcotics Anonymous.

In the same year, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Germany for failing to stop press photos of Princess Caroline of Monaco which it said violated her right to respect for private life.

REUTERS DH BST0502