Billboard Case Study

Case Study 2: Billboard

In this case study a mother was upset when a billboard featured her daughter’s picture endorsing a message that the mother did not want her daughter to represent. The mother did admit that she took her children to a modeling agency a couple years previously and she did sign a release for the photos. She knew that there would be a possibility for the photos to be sold in stock, but she was never informed who bought the images. The copyrighting issue lies in asking if the mother had to agree with the messages that groups were sending using images of her daughter.

The argument for this being an infringement of copyright is that the mother did not give the organization permission to use her daughter’s image. She was never told where her daughter’s image was being used. The cons of this being a copyright infringement is that she did sign an agreement saying that she acknowledged that her daughter’s picture could be sold.

I do not think that this is a copyright issue. I think that the billboard was extremely controversial and I think it was very extreme, but the mother did sign a form acknowledging that she understood that her daughter’s images could be sold. I think that in these cases that the parents should be told where their children’s images are going, but I think that is between the modeling company and the parents. I think that the activist group that used this image did not use it illegally.

Within education this case would be extremely different. Schools do require students to have release forms in order to use their personal photos in advertisement. Parents have to give the schools permission to use photos of their children in any yearbook or school newsletter. Just like this parent, other parents give schools permission to do this , and then the school can use the photos in any way they feel is best.