Missouri family Christmas phto turns up in Czech ad

[Jillian Slack]

I'll bet'cha this is what happened.

Whoever was in charge of making signs for this store saw the family photo online, figured since it's online it's fair game (copyright be damned), and used it.

This is what happens when people either ignore or have no idea that content is owned by someone and is not just free for the taking.

Mo. family Christmas photo turns up in Czech ad - Yahoo! News

Mo. family Christmas photo turns up in Czech ad

By BETSY TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer Betsy Taylor, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 10, 9:23 pm ET

ST. LOUIS – It's an international mystery: How did a Missouri family's Christmas card photo end up in the Czech Republic, splashed across a huge storefront advertisement? Danielle Smith said Wednesday that the photo taken of her family last year got sent to family and friends, and was posted on her blog and a few social networking sites. The photo showed her and her husband Jeff holding their two young children.
About 10 days ago, one of Smith's college friends was driving through Prague when he spotted their huge smiling faces in the window of a store specializing in Europeann food. He snapped a few pictures and sent them to a flabbergasted Smith.
"It's a life-size picture in a grocery store window in Prague — my Christmas card photo!" said Smith, 36, who lives in the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon.
Mario Bertuccio, who owns the Grazie store in Prague, said the photo was from the Internet. Details were sparse, but he said he thought it was computer-generated. When told it was a real photo — of a real family — he said he started taking steps to remove it.
"We'll be happy to write an e-mail with our apology," said Bertuccio, who said he would send the Smiths a bottle of good wine if they lived in his eastern European country.
The Smiths and photographer Gina Kelly hadn't authorized anyone to use the pictures. Kelly said she has asked a professional photographers' organization to help figure out how her image wound up in Prague.
Smith has gotten 180,000 hits to her Web site since she recently posted the story about the well-traveled snapshot. She said the photo wasn't used in an unseemly manner, it was just used to tell potential shoppers about the store's delivery service.
Smith said next time she posts a photo on the Internet, she's going to lower the resolution or add an electronic watermark to make it hard to reproduce.
"This story doesn't frighten me, but the potential frightens me," Smith said.

[bgmacaw]

This kind of stuff is why I don't put my photo or any other human in my family online. You'll just have to settle for my macaw and my cats.

[malcasid]

Wow, I bet this happens more often than we think it does.

[LegitIncomes]

What are the odds of that happening again? Someone just driving through the Czech Republic, and randomly spots a image of their friends!

Very strange, and interesting story...thanks for posting.

[Jillian Slack]

Someone posted a few minutes ago saying, "The Internet is a scary place."

Now that comment is gone.

Probably because it was a one-liner from someone with only 3 or so posts, and they were all one-liners.

Anyway, I don't think the Internet is a scary or dangerous place.

The Internet is a fabulous thing!

There are idiots out there who can make it a dangerous place, but there are idiots out there making anything you can think of dangerous.

[Alan Petersen]

Well the "the photo was from the Internet" so it's okay.

I have friends who can't believe I use my real name and pics on my online business but what would they say if I tried to be all secretive in an offline business? So I have no issues. I also post family pics online and stories like this won't stop me either. It's not like I'm including my home address and SSN.

I can't even imagine driving through Prague and seeing an add with my friends on it. That would be bizarre. I'm surprised he didn't drive off the road when he first saw the ad!