Adam Maas wrote: >> Virgin definitely deserves to get sued. But it sure looks like the >> plaintiffs are exaggerating their "suffering" for monetary gain. I >> notice that the photographer who put the photo on line and >> licensed it for commercial use (without getting a model release) >> is a co-PLAINTIFF, not a co-DEFENDANT! Amazing. He should be >>sharing liability with Virgin. > >He's a friend of the family and is equally pissed off,
Being pissed off does not excuse one from liability. :) >his real mistake was in not reading the fine print between the >different licenses (He actually thought he'd picked the >non-commercial license apparently). Agreed. But that just underscores the fact that *he's* the one primarily liable for this fiasco. >From a "letter of the law" standpoint, Virgin is entirely in the right: The photographer offered the photo for commercial use and it's technically up to him to insure all formalities of model release are taken care of. OTOH, every publication I've freelanced for has made me state in writing that I've secured all necessary model releases -- even for journalistic articles that technically shouldn't need them. So common sense (the legal term is "the reasonable, prudent person") would dictate that Virgin should have asked themselves "have all these people posting photos for commercial use on Flickr *really* secured the appropriate releases?" before going ahead. The law course I took in grad school only covered U.S. law, so I don't have any idea what Australian courts will make of it. (Assuming the truly frivolous parts of the suit, against Virgin USA and Creative Commons, get axed.) At the very least, they'll sue the photographer. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
