A Texas family has sued Virgin Mobile Australia for using a photo of their teenage daughter, posted on flickr, in an ad. The photo was posted under a creative commons licence, which states that the photo may be used for commercial purposes, but the family is protesting saying that the Virgin did not seek consent of the teenager.

The family also find the text in the ad offensive. I pity the girl who had no idea about the kind of media attention she was going to get, when she posed for this photo. This incident serves a reminder for people who upload photos to photo sharing sites such as Flickr. Make sure that you know what your rights are, ways of making photos private, and the different kinds of copyrights that may be applied to the image. Always watermark any image that you have taken before you put it up online.

Hope that the girl and her family do not suffer too much because of the media attention that this case is going to generate.