Virgin Sues Virgin Mobile

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.

Chang’s photo was part of a Virgin Mobile Australia campaign called “Are You With Us Or What?” It features pictures downloaded from Flickr superimposed with the company’s ad slogans.

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

SMH - Virgin sued for using teen’s photo

The case looks a bit shakey to us. The youth counsellor chose a sharing licence from Creative Commons that allows others to reuse work if they credit the photographer and say where the photo was taken. His Flickr page appears at the bottom of the ad. Unless calling a 16 year old a virgin is libel in Texas, we can’t see how that side of the case stacks up in court either.

the INQ - Virgin mobile sued by virgin