:::Case Study:::
Susan Chang filed a lawsuit against Creative Commons, Virgin Mobile USA and Virgin Mobile of Australia who trespasses her daughter Alison Chang’s privacy rights after the photo was used in an advertising campaign.

The photographer posted her image to the photo-sharing website called Flickr without their consent. In addition, the image is posted under Creative Commons attribution copyright license, which allow others, including commercial entities to reuse the copyright work without paying for it.

In the advertisement, Virgin Mobile printed one of its campaign slogans, “Dump your pen friend” over Alison’s photos. At the bottom of the ad, it also says “Free text virgin to virgin”.

The advertisement itself had damaged Alison’s reputation as she is now exposed to ridicule from her peers as well as the public.

In the end, Chang dropped their charges against Creative Commons but wanted the organization to add three sentences to its license to clarify that they doesn’t deal with privacy rights.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/virgin-sued-for-using-teens-photo/2007/09/21/1189881735928.html

http://www.itworld.com/071129creativecommons

Advice to resolve

The case of Chang v. Virgin Mobile, filed in a Dallas, Texas court may have important implications for companies that collect images of individuals. The case concerns a picture that an adult took of Allison Chang, a minor - apparently with her permission - and posted on Flickr under a Creative Commons -Attribution license. Neither Allison nor her parents knew the picture had been posted on Flickr. The CC-Attribution license grants the licensee a number of rights with respect to the photo, including the right to create and reproduce derivative products, and to display such derivative products. Virgin Mobile subsequently used the photograph in an extensive advertising campaign across Australia. However, when Allison and her parents found out how the picture was being used, it sued Virgin Mobile and Creative Commons for, among other things, invasion of privacy.

The suit alleges that a license "dictates the manner in which third parties may use the protected work", but it does not "eviscerate or supplant a person's independent right of privacy." The suit further states that as a direct result of Virgin Mobile's actions, Ms. Chang lost the exclusive control over her likeness and image and suffered humiliation, embarrassment and mental anguish as well as damage to her reputation.

This case, and others that are sure to follow, are important for a number of reason. First, it will help to define an individual's right to privacy in a digital world. As discussed on Lessig 2.0, a court probably would not have found the photographer had violated Ms. Chang's privacy simply by posting the image. http://lessig.org/blog/2007/09/on_the_texas_suit_against_virg.html#comments. However, extensive commercial use of the imagery might result in the court reaching a different decision.

The case is also important because it helps show the legal challenges associated with a "sharing economy". The spatial community is increasingly seeing the value in collecting and sharing open spatial data. Open data can take many forms. However, as this case shows, not everyone may want data associated with them "shared", particularly when the data can so quickly be altered and use for other purposes.

Source: http://spatiallaw.blogspot.com/2007/09/where-did-you-get-that-picture-of-me.html

Labels: Legal Issues