According to the Times, an online education site called Classesandcareers.com, to "reinforce the idea that a federal windfall might be a click away, ...featured three people in mortarboards flanked by a photograph of President Obama" in online ads.
But when a Times reporter called to ask whether the site had Obama's permission, the site quickly folded:"We had initially believed we were authorized to use that picture," Andrew Jensen, the marketing director of One on One [the site's parent company], said in an e-mail message. "After researching it further, we have found we were not, and are in the process of taking it off the landing page you saw. This is something that slipped through the cracks."If only all IP enforcement were this easy...
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I think there will just be more unauthorized commerical uses of Obama's image because they're getting free publicity from the controversy, such as this blog.
ReplyDeleteUnauthorized use of the president's image? There will always be use of his/her image as long as this country exist and satirists and opportunists exist. I think greater infringements occur in the private sector, like this one from a blog I read: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/02/04/dont-copy-a-website-especially-if-it-belongs-to-a-law-firm/
ReplyDeleteI have attempted to get permission from President Obama to use an AP image of him bodysurfing, for which I have gotten permission from AP, in a timeline of the history of black surfing for the California African American museum, and can not even get an email back indicating do not use it. I wish the White House would make it easier for people to ask for and obtain permissions.
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