Jude Townend | July 23, 2007
VIRGIN Mobile has been accused of breaching people's "moral rights" after it took images from a popular photo-sharing website without asking permission and used them in a national advertising campaign.
People around the world who posted their photos on the Yahoo-owned Flickr website have objected to their images being used in hundreds of Australian billboard ads, accompanied by provocative captions.
The campaign - Are You With Us Or What? - features images from the website branded with Virgin Mobile's own slogans.
They include: Work Friends Are Just That; If You Enjoy Your Company Too Much You'll Go Blind; and Strangers Are Just Serial Killers You Haven't Met Yet.
Alison Chang, 15, had no idea that when she posed for a photograph at a fundraiser in the US, her face would become famous across Australia, under the slogan Dump Your Pen Friend. She told The Australian yesterday: "It is definitely insulting to myself. They could have thought of something nicer to say." She and her family are now considering legal action.
Alison's elder brother, Damon, said he believed the advertisement showed her as a "loser" and "dumb" and "makes fun of her".
"It is an invasion of her privacy because what they're writing is something derogatory. They're basically saying dump any friends that look like my sister," he said.
Mr Chang, 27, has written to Virgin Mobile in New Jersey and is waiting for a response.
Virgin Mobile said yesterday it had acted legally and in accordance with the licensing agreements agreed to by Flickr users.
St James Ethics Centre executive director Simon Longstaff said Virgin Mobile might have breached "key moral rights".
Dr Longstaff said the company had "taken an unacceptable risk. They have been prepared to accept causing real and significant harm to those who might have objected to the use of the image, had they been asked."
Molly Herzschlag, from the US, discovered her photograph was being used under the slogan People Who Talk In Lifts Have Bad Breath. On her weblog, she wrote: "What they failed to do was get permission from the people in the photos ... Not sure what the next step will be legal-wise, if any, but I'm looking into it ... This is not the kind of famous I had in mind."
Virgin Mobile said yesterday the images from Flickr captured the "very spirit of the campaign".