Family's Christmas Photos Hawk Groceries In Prague

Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Jeff and Danielle Smith sent a photo of themselves with their two young children to family and friends as a Christmas card, and posted the image on her blog and a few social networking websites. Then, last month, a friend of the family was vacationing in the Czech Republic when he spotted a full size poster of the Missouri family's smiling faces in the window of a local supermarket in Prague, advertising a grocery delivery service. The friend snapped a few pictures and sent them to the Smiths, who were flabbergasted. Mario Bertuccio, who owns the Grazie store in Prague, admitted that he had found the photo online but thought it was computer-generated and promised to remove it, and 'We'll be happy to write an e-mail with our apology,' he says. Meanwhile Mrs. Smith has received 180,000 visitors and over 500 comments on her blog since she posted the story. She says she is glad the photo wasn't used in an unseemly manner. 'Interesting. Bizarre. Flattering, I suppose,' writes Mrs. Smith. 'But quite creepy.'"

Comments

Really...

[NervousNerd]

Anything (well unless it's something I'm trying to find) you post on the internet can be found. It's common sense.

Re:Really...

[evalhalla]

That's true, but a supermarket owner should know that they're not supposed to use a random image from the internet for commercial use; the defense "it looked like computer generated" does not work: there wouldn't be model rights, but the image would still be under copyright, unless the image was posted under some permissive license like CC-BY.

Re:Really...

[MichaelSmith]

Czech Republic, don't think they care too much about copyright over there.

Do you want a bet?

Re:Really...

[Aereus]

I think the obvious assumption is that he chose the photo specifically because they were from the US and unlikely to ever see the advertisement in his window. He just had the bad luck of the 1 in a million coincidence that someone else who knew the family also happened to be in Prague and notice the picture.

Re:Really...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

That might not be an unfair expectation. Depending on where you get your figures, only 10-30% of Americans leave the country. It doesn't help that it's a little expensive to go overseas, and the US is a large country, driving or riding coast to coast still means you're in the same country, covering the same distance many other places means you've crossed dozens of borders.

Actually as far as costs go

[deft]

It would be amazingly hard to sue them, so finding pics of someone in another country that will more than likely never see it, is a fairly safe way to go, and zero costs, with little risks.

Re:Eh

[TheLink]

But why creepy? So many people keep sending pics of their children to everyone anyway. That pic was posted on a blog and sent to lots of people.

If they're the sort who'd find it creepy they shouldn't do that then.

There are now thousands of strangers downloading the pics of their children. Oh noes!

The moral is

[SpaghettiPattern]

The moral is: "DO NOT POST YOUR PERSONAL LIFE ON THE INTERNET!"

Really, besides your loved ones, nobody gives a fsck about your personal life unless they can make a bob or two out of it.

Also, be unmistakeably clear to provide licensing conditions to your content.

Last, don't whine if you're an idiot. Then again, you're probably still in the long lasting denial phase anyway.

It's not giving up. It's solving for the answer.

[SuperKendall]

In this day and age of feel-good, everyone's a winner anti-competitiveness, it should be no surprise that someone would come along and claim that giving up is the same as winning.

Incorrect. It's not giving up at all. In fact it's rather the opposite - it's obtaining the best possible result from the situation.

Sue the owner? We all know they would get nothing. A store owner would be out of business, and the family would be out legal expenses. A great ending if you're a law firm.

Tell him to take it down? Again, how have you really "won" anything. You have caused more waste through reprinting. You have done some harm to a small business, and done nothing at all to help your family. Your family looks like cads.

So you explain to me how saying "you know what, just keep using the photo and retire it when you are ready" is not the most sensible and best result possible. The family gets a kick out of knowing they will be seen in another country, again in a positive fashion. The grocer gets to keep using a nice photo, and again everyone wins - not because of anti weird anti-competitvness (which I abhor) but because in the best human fashion you have solved for the most optimal result.

There are plenty of other conditions in which I would say fighting would be the best option. You make the mistake of not realizing conditions can determine the best solution, and this is not one of the conditions in which a solution you seem to be advocating (fighting) is best.

Of course we all know at this point the true story is that it was obtained as a stock photo, which means he's not using the photo improperly at all and if anything the family needs to have a word with the friend who sold them to microstock without asking. Is she making money off them? Well then, that's a whole different story...

Re:Eh

[bloobloo]

I don't know. He can probably get by fine. It's not like he's known for his face.

Re:Eh

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, what?

You took pictures of an adult (over 18) and her mother complained about this so you deleted the pictures?

I'm sorry but this doesn't quite make sense to me.

Re:Total Hijack

[c0p0n]

If you need scripts to "show things properly" then the implementation is broken in the first place. The site's functionality should degrade nicely when javascript ain't available.

Re:It's not giving up. It's solving for the answer

[Ogive17]

All I would ask is to have the grocer send me one of the posters. I would think it would make a great wall hanging for a rec room. A picture of your family advertising the weekly sale in a foreign language.... great conversational piece!