Comments on: Flickr Photos Used by Virgin Mobile

By: Keith

Keith — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:00:34 +0000

All photographers should pay attention to the metadata files and fill out the form properly before opening up their images for use, whether copyright free, or chargeable usage.

I now embed all my travel images as “Intended for unreleased travel imagery.” That way there is no doubt in the potential users mind that model releases have not been obtained. It also ensures that the user does so at their own risk and that from a moral point of view the photographer has distanced him/her self from any legal issues that may arise from its use.

By: dsawchuk

dsawchuk — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:09:23 +0000

Thanks for keeping us up to date and good luck with everything.

By: Damon

Damon — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:01:21 +0000

Hi, my name is Damon and I’m the brother of the girl whose image was used in the Australia Virgin Mobile Campaign.

There is a big discussion thread on the FLICKR forums, but I just wanted to post and let you guys know that we have retained legal counsel in the US and have sent Virgin Mobile US and Virgin Mobile Australia a formal demand letter requesting compensation for the use of her image in these ads. I feel that it should be fair that they compensate her since they used her image for commercial purposes.

Here’s my email address in case any other photographers or models from the ads want more information:

damon@teacherjames.com

Any legal queries can be forwarded to:

Ryan Zehl
c/o Fitts Zehl LLP (Houston, Texas)

Here’s the link to the FLICKR discussion thread:

Flickr thread here.

Thanks,

Damon

By: dsawchuk

dsawchuk — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:16:41 +0000

Hi Dave,

I had a feeling there might be a few more instances of this happening. It is a big campaign after all and they probably needed a number of images. If they were dumb enough to make the mistake once…

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 02:39:51 +0000

Darby, the ad campaign also used a photo of a popular web designer Molly Holzschlag. You can check out her reaction over at her blog, molly.com.

By: dsawchuk

dsawchuk — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 15:06:25 +0000

Hi Susheel,

Thanks for the info. I covered that story a little while ago here, here, and here.

Lots of flickr drama lately.

By: Susheel

Susheel — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:25:48 +0000

Hi,

Just wanted you guys to know about the recent fiasco where a very popular flickr photographer, Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir had her pictures stolen and used without permission and subsequently had a lot of issues…

Here are a couple of posts from her blog explaining the issue… do read the comments… many are quite enlightening
http://rebekkagudleifs.com/blog/2007/05/15/freedom-of-expression-telling-the-truth/
http://rebekkagudleifs.com/blog/2007/05/17/official-apology-from-flickr-founder/

See the link below for Rebekka’s flickr stream
http://flickr.com/photos/rebba/

I hope that offers some idea of what’s going on…

Cheers!

By: dsawchuk

dsawchuk — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 06:24:55 +0000

Since I don’t really use it all that much I only put up low res versions of my images, it hasn’t come up for me.

I have had a travel company ask to use one of my images for free, but I turned them down.

I actually find it a bit surprising that so many people put up high resolution work and that there aren’t a lot more cries of work being stolen.

By: Mikey Leung

Mikey Leung — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 01:55:32 +0000

Very interesting discussion, considering I am now thinking of using Flickr to get more visibility for my photos.. Have you had to deal with any cases of image theft as of yet?