Although this has little to do with exotic car rental, I found the story of Alison Chang and Virgin Mobile to be worthy of commenting upon here. It appears that Allison, who lives in Bedford, TX – had her picture taken while she was attending a church camp.
Her counselor uploaded an innocent shot of the 16-year-old making a peace sign to photo sharing site Flickr and tagged it for sharing under a Creative Commons License.
It came to the attention of ad executive for Virgin Mobile half a world away in Australia, and they used the image in an edgy campaign to sell mobile phones that invited the teen to drop her pen friend.
I’ve shared photos on Flickr and never given much thought to how or where they might be used, but the controversy surrounding Alison and her photo will make me a bit more careful about doing that.
It will be interesting to see how the courts sort out which court has jurisdiction over the posting of a photo of a Dallas area teen on a photo server located who only knows where and then reused by ad execs thousands of miles away.
It certainly would be a shock to see an image of yourself in an advertisement for a product and company that you did not give permission to, and in a campaign that is a bit more edgy than you might ever have consented to be a part of.
The Internet is a fantastic tool for business and connects people in millions of wonderful ways. For example, a press release written about the Fiat Balilla Roadster in our Fort Worth toy museum appeared in an Italian newspaper and resulted in more complete information about the toy from the son of the maker. That would have been far less likely without the Internet.
On the other hand, the story about Alison Chang reveals that sometimes information sharing can have consequences that leave us with anything but a peaceful feeling.
Does this story change how you will share photos? Will it cause you to talk with your teenagers about photo sharing? Do you think the Changs will prevail against Virgin?
