From her brother 3 days ago:
teacherjamesdotcom says:
Hi, we've obviously been keeping up with the news and with these boards. I'm not going to post often because I shouldn't. But I do want to put up some responses to a few of the previous posts.
Some might think that we are suing for money. I just want to bring up these points.
1. Virgin Mobile and the ad company did something wrong here. They took ordinary people's photographs, put them up in an ad campaign, and didn't notify anyone. I've posted before about what possible thinking went through the heads of the ad company and managers when someone MUST HAVE asked, "...shouldn't we notify these photographers that we're using their picture?" And someone at their companies said No, and had a justification for it.
In our opinion, that is wrong. Before bringing on legal representation, I had sent them a complaint letter, asking them to explain the situation. Before filing suit, our attorneys sent them complaint letters to explain why they acted as they did. And everytime back, their "corporate" response was: We did nothing wrong. We acted in the faith of the CC License. We are on the side of creativity (even the ad company started a new thread on FLICKr saying they are just creative, etc.).
In my opinion and our opinion, this is not adequate by any means. It's a big company, sidestepping normal procedure (like notifying people) to save money. Justin didn't actively seek out Virgin to sell his photos, just like 100 of the other user images they pulled, didn't actively seek out Virgin, or any commercial entity.
2. If they are genuiely HONEST about trying to promote creativity among photographers, ad campaigns, etc. Why wouldn't they contact the photographers then? The CC License 2.0 stipulates that you need to attribute the photographer and location of the photograph. Just putting someone's Flickr page on the bottom left hand corner doesn't attribute the photographer's name OR the location of the photograph. If they really wanted to help photographers and spread the word, putting "image by CHEWYWONG on FLICKr" doesn't really give a lot of exposure to Justin or his photography "talents", does it?
They made a clear decision to bypass notifying photographers (even though CC 2.0 talks about correct attribution) and of course they didn't contact anyone within the images.
3. She's a minor. And she's a girl. And her image was FOUND in Australia. By a complete stranger, who just happened to see it at a bus stop. Wouldn't that make you feel uncomfortable?
She didn't consent to this. Yeah, it's possible my sister might have been excited to be part of a Virgin Mobile campaign. And no doubt it can be seen as 15 minutes of fame by some. But, the point is, she wouldn't have said okay to this image of her, portrayed in this way. I guarantee you my mom would have never said okay to Alison's picture being put on a billboard in Australia. There's no point for us. Alison's not an aspiring actress, she's not an aspiring model. Why in the world would we want to expose a 15 year old high school student halfway across the world to sell phones for Virgin Mobile?
And now, imagine that one day someone shows you an image of her halfway around the world, selling phones for Virgin Mobile, with that goofy picture. With all the stuff being written about predators online and stories, wouldn't that make you a little uncomfortable? It definitely made my mom uncomfortable. And as her brother, it makes me angry. What stops another company or Virgin to do this again? Pull pictures elsewhere. For another ad. It's just not right. And Virgin's response is...NOTHING. Nothing stops us from doing this again. Nothing stops another company from doing it. Because nothing is wrong with what we did. In fact, we are promoting creativity. We are helping Justin and my sister, and other photographers.
I disagree. My mom disagrees.
And so, we filed suit. And for me and mom, we are glad that this story is gaining exposure. People need to know about the Creative Commons attribute and EXACTLY how to use it. Hopefully, it gives people some pause when they think about all the pictures out there on the internet and all the people that just posted pictures to share with friends and family.
Posted 3 days ago. ( permalink ) 
