So much to learn, so little time
OK, I’ll be the first to admit to having played fast and loose with the law at various stages of my career. But, I’ve largely worked as an individual, or as part of a very small, under resourced organisation.
There is no excuse at all for playing fast and loose when you are the marketing department of a major international telecommunications company, or the people who run their marketing campaigns for them.
Things like this really should not happen. The fact that they do shows a disturbing lack of knowledge on the part of every person who signed off on it. I suspect no lawyer looked at it at all, as checking that model releases had been obtained would be the most basic due diligence. However, anyone in the creative industries, particularly the commercial creative industries, should know about them as well.
I doubt any legal action will come of this, and that’s really not the point. However I would like to think that someone who thought they were pretty clever and funny, is now feeling pretty damn stupid.
Cheryl
July 13th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Having worked for a similar company and having a similar situation happen, I can totally see how this slipped through. (I’m not saying it’s right, just that I can see how it happened).
I’ve been in a situation where the agency (who makes ads for a living and should have known better) didn’t get a model to sign a release… I think the problem is a lot of agencies are creatively led but not that internet savvy, it’s quite new for them - so I can see how they got excited that there were so many flickr photos with creative commons and they just assumed that meant they could use it for free. To their credit Virgin Mobile do post the URL of the flickr photo they are using, at least they did in the last ads I saw. I’m sure the legal team that signed off on the ads aren’t internet law specialists, they are probably corporate lawyers.
FWIW, I really liked the Virgin Mobile ads.
admin
July 13th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Shameless marketing plug - we have a session in the conference focussing on intellectual property, privacy and other related issues. With the rise of “user generated content”, and creative commons type licenses, this is going to be a significant issue that not only lawyers will need to be aware of.
john