Lawsuit Against Virgin Mobile and Creative Commons – FAQ
Mike Linksvayer, September 27th, 2007
Many people have asked us for information about the lawsuit prepared to be filed in Texas against Virgin Mobile and Creative Commons. The plaintiffs of the lawsuit are the parents of a student whose image in a CC-licensed photograph was used by Virgin Mobile in an advertising campaign and the photographer who took the original picture of the student and posted it on Flickr. We have prepared the FAQ below, which should answer many of your questions. We also recommend that you read Creative Commons CEO Lawrence Lessig’s blog post about the situation.
Outdated FAQs have been removed
Of course it isn’t Creative Commons’ fault for this. It feels like just another situation where someone feels cheated by their own mistake, yet it’s far too big to be just their fault? Actually, it’s not. It’s just this kid’s fault. CreativeCommons.org lays it out pretty clearly, but maybe some people don’t realize that the site even exists?
That’s something I’m trying to change.
Perhaps a “Creative Commons in Plain English” on the Common Craft show?
I don’t think CC or Virgin is at fault here. If anybody is at fault, it’s the photographer. He should have asked the person in the photo if it’s cool to post it on Flickr.
Kunal, you’re wrong. Virgin absolutely is at fault. You don’t need a model release just to post an image of someone online, but Virgin should have checked with the photographer that he’d obtained a minor release before using it in an advert. *facepalm*