Photos placed on Flickr

Australia's Virgin Mobile phone company just grabbed a photo from Flickr and used it all over Australia for commercial advertising. Here is an online article about it at the Houston Chronical <-- click to see
I saw this on CNN and they said that any photo posted on Flickr can be used for free for any purpose.
Here on Flickr it shows the Virgin Mobile opinion of what happened <-- click to see
Glad I never used Flickr
What is your opinion on this?

That is one of the reasons why I opted to use pbase.com as a photo host...no such silly caveats in the fine print. If you look around, you will find that Flickr is not the only host with that little snag!

no, wrong of them to think that. when you post your photos on flicker you pick the license agreement.. you CAN choose exclusive rights or limited or none. its up to the poster..although, I gotta say, its kinda buried and there really is nothing like a pop up to tell you about this feature, but if your on flicker, go into your account settings and look for licensing and make sure you are not giving your photos away. Also, only upload small files and you can set it so they cant be copied easily.... Virgin needs to be slapped for this...HARD!

This happened a while back from memory.

John_B wrote in post #3995395
I saw this on CNN and they said that any photo posted on Flickr can be used for free for any purpose.

The images that were used were uploaded to flickr under a Creative Commons license. Depending on which type of CC license they used, Virgin was well within its rights to use them as ad material. The issue is that there were peoples faces that were recognisable in the photos that were published and Virgin didnt obtain model releases etc...

Also, its the reason why my photos go up under a full copyright license on flickr and not any of the CC ones. Its at least something to fall back on if someone does use one of my photos without my consent

zacker wrote in post #3995438
Also, only upload small files and you can set it so they cant be copied easily....

800x533 uploads for me

Hmm. All of my stuff is friends/family only and I've licensed nothing. I'd be majorly pissed if someone could use my photos without my knowledge... I went through the fine print back when I signed up, maybe I need to go back over it again.

lol.... so whats this guys beef?

"People who post photos on Flickr are asked how they want to license their attribution. Wong 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."

this was taken from the first link in john_b's post above.. now if this is true, i dont see a problem for Virgin from the Photog, but I do see one FOR the photog from the girl.. did he have HER permission to use HER photo? a release would have been the thing to do. Virgin used the photo fron his page and credited him as per his agreement.. although i believe that is the default agreement and most users prolly dont know this al all.

I think that hosting sites need to make this type of stuff a little more clear and understanding for the regular person who does not understand this type of stuff. I bet that Flickr was conpensated by Virgin for the use of the photos in a very minor way which would have saved them some money as opposed any other photo outlet.

Seems lack it was the lack of understand of the CC licences' implications led to all these. Though while it's true that sites such as Flickr should take a more proactive approach is getting this clear, accountability should still lie with the user. Uploaded photos are defaulted to ARR, so whoever assigned any type of CC licence is assumed to have read up on what exactly they mean.

It looks like the girl's family is suing for damages to the girl's reputation, the photographer is suing for a missing credit line. I don't know about damages but it seems she is entitled to modeling fees at the very least. Being a minor further complicates the situation for Virgin. After reading the statement in the second link I think Virgin stretched their reach more than just a little bit. It seems they violated the CC license when they failed to include the required credit line. Also it is absurd to believe that Virgin's motivation was to promote Flickr, they were cutting costs, period.

the credit line to the photographer is at the bottom of the photo on the left.

3Turner wrote in post #3996654
the credit line to the photographer is at the bottom of the photo on the left.

Was that on the picture on the billboard? I didn't see a picture of the ad I was only going from what the articles said. Seems a court will decide it at some point.

breal101 wrote in post #3996731
Was that on the picture on the billboard? I didn't see a picture of the ad I was only going from what the articles said. Seems a court will decide it at some point.

Yeah..let me see if I can find it for you. I actually found the user where the girl found the ad. give me a few.

Here you go: http://flickr.com/phot​os/sesh00/515961023

And here is the CNN video that shows a closeup
http://www.cnn.com …virgin.flickr.l​awsuit.cnn

Thanks Robert, looks like the photographer could be out of luck. But even small business people are aware of using someones picture in an ad without permission is a no no. They had the source of the photo, they could have contacted the photographer for a model release. I just see this as more of the photo contest type promotions that are designed to knock out the professional photographers and avoid publication fees altogether.