VIRGIN Sued For Libel of Teen Alison Chang
Category: Student Life
A 16-year-old teenage girl, Alison Chang, feels humiliated because her picture was used without her consent on billboard and website advertisements which belong to Australia’s Virgin Mobile phone company. 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, and at the right bottom it says “Are You With Us Or What?” It features pictures downloaded from Flickr superimposed with the company’s ad slogans.
According to Alison’s brother, Damon, the picture of Alison flashing a peace sign was taken at an April church car wash by Alison’s youth counselor, who posted it that day on his Flickr page. Flickr was a Canadian company that developed the photo-sharing Web site then sold it to Yahoo in 2005.
“It’s the tag line; it’s derogatory,” said Damon Chang, 27. “A lot of her church friends saw it.”
In my opinion, the Ad is pretty creative. The friendly happy young girl is signalling V (for Virgin mobile) as if she’s promoting the Virgin Mobile SMS text service as the message says, DUMP YOUR PEN FRIEND, means don’t bother writing stuff with your pen anymore, because the free SMS from Virgin to Virgin customers is here. But Virgin has violated Alison’s rights and damaged her reputation. They need to take down the ad and compensate her for damages.
Alison’s family has filed suit late Wednesday in state district court in Dallas, naming Virgin Mobile USA LLC, its Australian counterpart, and Creative Commons Corp., a Massachusetts nonprofit that licenses sharing of Flickr photos, as defendants. The experience damaged Alison’s reputation and exposed her to ridicule from her peers and scrutiny from people who can now Google her, the family charged in the lawsuit.
The Dallas family accused the companies of libel and invasion of Chang’s privacy. The suit seeks unspecified damages for Alison Chang and the photographer, Justin Ho-Wee Wong.
People who post photos on Flickr are asked how they want to license their attribution. The person who posted the photo of Alison chose a sharing license from Creative Commons that allows others to reuse work such as photos without violating copyright laws, if they credit the photographer and say where the photo was taken.
Virgin Mobile Pty Ltd., the Australian company, released a statement saying the use of the photo is lawful and fits with Virgin’s image. “The images have been featured within the positive spirit of the Creative Commons Agreement, a legal framework voluntarily chosen by the photographers,” the statement said. “It allows for their photographs to be used for a variety of purposes, including commercial activities.”
A spokeswoman for Virgin Mobile USA said the company had nothing to do with the ads and had asked to be removed from the lawsuit.
