A photo posted to a blog that mocks corporate headshots has pitted ARAG North America, a company that provides legal insurance, against Google in a copyright lawsuit. It is a case that legal experts say exhibits an increasingly common clash over bloggers who post images online without permission. The lawsuit concerns a head-and-shoulders photo of Ann Dieleman, a senior vice president and chief marketing officer with ARAG. The photo was published in 2009 on SexyExecs.blogspot.com, a forum where users post photos of executives with satirical comments.
Google owns Blogger, the company that hosts the website, and while no new pictures have been posted to the site since 2011, the photo remains.
This is a good case to take note of if you or one of your family members posts a blog. Many bloggers (and members of the general public) don't realize that what they post online may infringe on copyrights. While there are many exceptions to the law, in general you cannot post someone else's photo online without their permission, even if you attribute it. Companies, like Google and Facebook, receive thousands of requests each day to remove content. Last month alone, Google received nearly 25 million take-down requests for copyright violations, according to the company's self-published transparency report.
This suit also says a lot about digital permanence. It is hard to get something you have posted to a public site taken down. We all need to remember that when posting any content, whether it is about others or ourselves. Once posted, it is likely to be very hard to remove.
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