Alison Chang
(Bio on Flickr), a 16-year-old Texan teen girl, is suing Virgin Mobile phone company for stealing her photo which was taken by her youth counselor Justin Ho-Wee Wong during a Christian camp in Australia.
Chang's family filed a lawsuit late Wednesday (September 19) in state district court in Dallas against Virgin Mobile USA LLC, its Australian counterpart, and Creative Commons Corp., a Massachusetts nonprofit that licenses sharing of Flickr photos.
Her parents claimed that the Australia Virgin Mobile phone company caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and Web site advertisements without consent.
The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr and failed to credit the photographer by name in a multimillion Virgin Mobile ad campaign featured in bus stop ads in Australia.
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.
While Virgin Mobile Australia said it was "unable to comment at this stage as we have not received or seen a copy of the lawsuit in question".
In the comments section for the Ad photo above uploaded by Sesh00 who took the picture on Churchill Road in Adelaide, Alison wrote, "hey that's me! no joke. i think i'm being insulted." While her brother Damon Chang also believed that "it's derogatory".
Sources: Teen Sues Virgin Mobile for Stealing Her Flickr Photos @ MWT
Virgin sued for using teen's photo @ smh
Alison Chang Sues Virgin Mobile For Stealing Her Flickr Photos @ Post Chronicle
Discussion on the CC license issue about the pictures above is FlickrCentral