September 24, 2007
Virgin Mobile Australia Sued for Using Teenager's Photos
A USA based family are suing Virgin Mobile Australia over an advertising campaign which features a photo of their teenage daughter - apparently without permission. Cellular News reports.
"The family of Alison Chang claim that Virgin Mobile (or its advertising agency) took a copy of a photo which had been uploaded to the photo sharing website, Flickr - edited it and reused it in their poster campaigns.
The photo had apparently been released by the photographer - who is Alison's youth counselor - under the Creative Commons copyright policy which permits reuse, subject to attribution to the photographer - which was included in the Virgin Mobile adverts.
However, Australian codes also require a model release form to be signed where a persons image is being used in an advert, and the family say that they never gave such a permission. The photo seems to have had its copyright permissions changed to "all rights reserved"."
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