The public figure can't copyright their appearance, but whoever recorded the clip absolutely has a copyright on it.
The funniest thing about copyright issues is that whenever they come up, people are so confidently wrong about the actual law. Lots of stuff on YouTube is only permitted because the rightsholders allow it to stay up - every cover of every modern song, for example.
> Lots of stuff on YouTube is only permitted because the rightsholders allow it to stay up - every cover of every modern song, for example.
And many of those rights-holders only allow it because YouTube built a mechanism that helps them detect these uses and then automatically siphon off ad revenue it generates.
The funniest thing about copyright issues is that whenever they come up, people are so confidently wrong about the actual law. Lots of stuff on YouTube is only permitted because the rightsholders allow it to stay up - every cover of every modern song, for example.