Delicate Genius Blog

Remember the whole Virgin Mobile using Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr ordeal?

Well, it just got interesting.

According to the SMH this morning, one of the girls in one of the pics is suing:

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.

Of note, the lawsuit names both Virgin Mobile USA LLC and Creative Commons Corp.

Lawrence Lessig, creative commons granddaddy, has some comments on the situation.

At a high level he notes that:

• He can’t really comment on the case specifically but;
• Creative Commons doesn’t specifically deal with privacy
• What is covered under a Creative Commons licence is very clear and far exceeds CC’s obligations regarding clarity

So, this is gonna be an interesting one. I don’t reckon CC has anything to worry about. There is sometimes (rarely) the misconception that CreativCommons is more than it is and is some alternative to copyright. When in fact all it does is compliment copyright by allowing rights holders to to specific usage rights up front, and nothing more.

It is interesting though that when taking a photo of someone and issuing a licence for commercial use, you do have to remember to consider your obligations as a photographer, especially around privacy and model release.

-dg