"A Texas family has sued Australia's Virgin Mobile phone company, claiming it caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and website advertisements without consent.
The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc's popular photo-sharing website, and failed to credit the photographer by name.
The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc's popular photo-sharing website, and failed to credit the photographer by name.
Chang's photo was part of a Virgin Mobile Australia campaign called "Are You With Us Or What?" It features pictures downloaded from Flickr superimposed with the company's ad slogans.
The picture of 16-year-old Chang flashing a peace sign was taken in April by Alison's youth counsellor, who posted it that day on his Flickr page, according to Alison's brother, Damon.
In the ad, Virgin Mobile printed one of its campaign slogans, "Dump your pen friend," over Alison's picture.
The ad also says "Free text virgin to virgin" at the bottom.
The experience damaged Alison's reputation and exposed her to ridicule from her peers and scrutiny from people who can now Google her, the family said in the lawsuit."
The picture of 16-year-old Chang flashing a peace sign was taken in April by Alison's youth counsellor, who posted it that day on his Flickr page, according to Alison's brother, Damon.
In the ad, Virgin Mobile printed one of its campaign slogans, "Dump your pen friend," over Alison's picture.
The ad also says "Free text virgin to virgin" at the bottom.
The experience damaged Alison's reputation and exposed her to ridicule from her peers and scrutiny from people who can now Google her, the family said in the lawsuit."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/
virgin-sued-for-using-teens-photo/2007/09/21/1189881735928.html Since Alison clearly didn't want her picture all over the Internet, I'm not including it in this post. I'm extremely hesitant to mark any of the pictures I use in myspace as public because I don't want everybody to able to see my photos and I don't have much in my flickr account for the same reason. The Verizon ad takes privacy rights, copyright and more to a whole new level. This picture is innocous, a cute photo taken at a church picnic, but many people have much more, uhm, iffy pictures in their flickr accounts. You don't want potential employers, or people across the world, to see pictures of you next to the keg at a house party or out at a club at 2 am, so please be careful what you post on the Internet. This goes for pictures of friends and family also, especially children. If you are going to post pictures, mark them as private instead of public so that only friends can view them.
virgin-sued-for-using-teens-photo/2007/09/21/1189881735928.html Since Alison clearly didn't want her picture all over the Internet, I'm not including it in this post. I'm extremely hesitant to mark any of the pictures I use in myspace as public because I don't want everybody to able to see my photos and I don't have much in my flickr account for the same reason. The Verizon ad takes privacy rights, copyright and more to a whole new level. This picture is innocous, a cute photo taken at a church picnic, but many people have much more, uhm, iffy pictures in their flickr accounts. You don't want potential employers, or people across the world, to see pictures of you next to the keg at a house party or out at a club at 2 am, so please be careful what you post on the Internet. This goes for pictures of friends and family also, especially children. If you are going to post pictures, mark them as private instead of public so that only friends can view them.
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